Current Topics and Events

Abstract

THE call for economy in the Civil Service has produced a number of letters in the correspondence columns of State Technology, the journal of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, from members who do not belong to the administrative section of the service or to the clerical section from which the administrative is recruited. The object of these letters is to show that great saving might be effected by making better use of the professional, scientific, and technical officers of the service. At present it often happens that progressive scientific development is hampered by the existence of a control without knowledge of the scientific work on which the professional members are engaged. Such a control tends towards a stereotyped system in which each member of the service becomes a mere machine without inspiration or initiative, and to the promotion of clerks into secretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, etc., at salaries out of all proportion to the value of their services to the State. From letters in the February number of the journal it appears probable that some of these facts are to be discussed in the daily press in the near future.