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CHAPTER VIII
PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION
GENERAL
171. The White Paper Colonial No. 197 recommends that a Public Services Commission should be set up in the Colony to advise the Governor on appointments that he is competent to make under the "general overriding powers" of the Secretary of State. It is suggested that this would ensure increased confidence both in the service and among the public. With this we are entirely in agreement. The existence of the Commission should be a guarantee that conditions of service are reasonably interpreted and evenly applied.
FUNCTIONS
172. Subject to the overriding powers of the Secretary of State the Commission should be authorised to make recommendations for the filling of all vacancies in the public services of the Colony.
173. Effectively to achieve its purposes the Commission should be empowered:-
(i) to see that in new appointments every effort is made to give the earliest reasonable effect to the policy defined in Section III of the White Paper regarding the improvement of opportunities for local candidates;
(ii) to lay down the form in which applications for employment should be made; to issue notices of vacancies in the public service; to take responsibility for the standard and conduct of all examina- tions laid down as qualification for admission to any grade of the public service and for such examinations as may be prescribed as qualification for confirmation in appointments or for promotion in any service;
(iii) to advise the Governor concerning officers recommended by Heads
of Departments for promotion;
(iv)
to endeavour to co-ordinate standards by which efficiency is measured and to consider and to advise the Governor on recommendations made by Heads of Departments that officers should proceed above efficiency bars in the salary scales; (v) to receive through Heads of Departments representations from officers who believe that conditions of service have been inter- preted to their disadvantage;
(vi) to advise the Governor on any matters relating to conditions of
service that he may refer to it.
CONSTITUTION
174. The Commission is strongly of opinion that in order that it may achieve the greatest measure of the confidence of officers and the public, the Public Services Commission should be as completely as possible freed from the fact and from the appearance of control by Government. For this reason it seems desirable that it should have statutory authority and protection in the exercise of its duties. It should have direct access to the Governor and should not have among its members any person who is in the service of Government. Nevertheless it is essential that it should have at least one member who is thoroughly versed in the rules of Government procedure and in the best traditions of the public service.
RECOMMENDATIONS
175. We therefore recommend:--
(a) that the Chairman should be a retired Government servant of the judicial, the administrative or one of the professional services and that he should normally be a full-time officer on an appropriate salary holding his appointment for a term of not less than three years;
(b) that there should be two other members of the Commission who should serve without payment for a term of two years or such period as will ensure continuity of membership;
(c) that the officer in charge of personnel matters in the Secretariat
should be secretary to the Commission, but not a member,
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