Important

Fiji Civil Service

Conditions

Important Recommendations

From Our Own Correspondent Suva, November 7.

THE Fiji Government now has before it the report and recommendations of the Committee set up in Decem ber, 1944, to examine the terms and con ditions of the Civil Service of Fiji. If the recommendations are given effect to, a number of changes will be introduced and a general rise in salaries (to cost £27,252 immediately, plus another £72,443 later on) will take place.

Although the report has just been pub lished, the recommendations h&ve been common knowldge, and the subject of highly confidential discussion in Govern ment circles, for months past.

As at January 1, 1946, we had a total of 1367 on our Government payroll, made up as follows: Senior Division .. .. 154 Junoir Division .. .. 1213 1367 These people were divided racially as follows: Europeans and part-Europeans .. 552 Fijians and other Islanders .. .. 545 Indians 181 Vacant posts 89 1367 Of the above, 77 officers were recruited from the United Kingdom—73 of them being in the Senior Division.

Some of the recommendations for making “an efficient and contented Ser vice” are: • The removal of racial discrimina tion. • The abolition of the Senior and Junior Divisions. • Pay to vary with responsibility. • Equal pay for equal work by men or women. • An ultimate objective of filling all posts locally. • Free quarters to be abolished. • Promotion to go by (1) efficiency; (2) suitability, and (3) seniority.

If comparisons are odious, what will be the reaction by Government servants in Pacific territories and elsewhere to the following specimen salary recom mendations?

Accountant, General, from £950 (plus quarters) p.a. to £1,200.

Assistant Accountant, from £525-£6OO (plus quarters), p.a. to £6OO-£B4O.

Director of Agriculture, Jfrom £l,lOO (plus quarters) p.a. to £1,450.

Auditor, from £9OO (plus quarters) p.a. to £1,200.

Controller of Customs, from £1,050 (plus quarters) p.a. to £1,300.

Harbour Master, from £650 .(plus quar ters) p.a. to £720.

Junior Division

MR. H. E. SNELL, General Manager of Morris, Hedstrom, Limited, and once an officer in the Service him self, reported on the Junior Division of the Service in February, 1944, and his report was included in the Council Paper.

Mr. Snell really got to work on the Juniors —and on Government, too. His comments and criticisms were outstand ingly brilliant: his method and language must have swept through the Secretariat like a tornado. He promised to say harsh things; he certainly did.

He observed in the Junior Service “a serious amount of discontent and ineffi ciency.” Some of the causes: pay in adequate to meet the rise of prices; cli

(Continued on page 71)

mate; lack of interest in (junior officers’) work contributed to by the absence of consistent and forward-loking policies of Government accentuated by the failure of Heads of Departments to enforce dis cipline; and resentment at the recom mendations of the earlier Barton Report.

In covering his subject in great detail, Mr. Snell emphasised many deficiencies and many injustices, was generous in his praise where he found cause to praise, and made a series of wide recommenda tions which, if adopted, should not only remove much discontent from among junior officers but give the Colony a body of efficient junior civil servants.

The Government is no doubt grateful for this brilliant criticism of so import ant a branch of its administration. Why could it not have made such an analysis itself? Is its failure proof of its own inefficiency?

THE general reaction to the Commit tee’s recommendations is that its majority membership of government servants have done themselves well. The average Government servant here rarely conveys the impression either that he is outstandingly capable or that he is greatly overburdened either with work or the desire to be a model of efficiency.

If this is tifiie, then perhaps some reason for it is to be found in Mr. Snell’s words of February, 1944: “The lack of clarity and consistency in the expression of policy in London and from the local Government House has its effects on the heads of depart ments who are uncertain in many cases what Government policy is or in other cases what general expectation there is of funds to support a policy. If a head of department is not interested in his work, he is hardly likely to inspire in terest in his subordinate, yet without that interest the subordinates’ work is likely to be poor.”

Previous to this Mr. Snell reported: “. . . But it is clear that in the Service at the present time many other officers are not working as efficiently or as steadily as they could.”

Leaving aside the question of cost, will the new salary scales and other proposed new conditions give us a more efficient Civil Service? Money in itself matters little —it is the spirit and a man’s innate ability which are all-important.