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EXTRACT FROM PAPER A.G.C. NO. 4 PREPARED FOR AFRICAN GOVERNOR'S
CONFERENCE. 1947.
85
IL
Public Service Commissions
The establishment of Public Service Commissions in the Colonies envisaged in paragraph 21 (XI) of Colonial No. 197 with the object of ensuring that the Governor is afforded suitable advice on the selection and appointment of local candidates for Government employment. Indeed the Public Service Commission is an essential feature of the policy of devolution. The functions of the Civil Service Commission in this country are confined to recruitment although under postwar conditions it has the additional function of posting candidates to departments in accordance with their suitability for different forms of Government activity. Its origin was the movement against patronage appointments in this country in the middle of the last century. While conditions of entry in the Home Civil Service are regulated by the Civil Service Commission in consultation with the Treasury, conditions of employment in Government Departments continue to be determined by the Treasury or departmental authority.
12
The functions of the Public Service Commission in Ceylon (the only Colony apart from Malta that has a Public Service Commission; that in Malta having been modelled on that in Ceylon) cover promotions and discipline in addition to recruitinent. In New Zealand the Public Service Commission similarly has a wide range of functions and so have those set up in India by the Government of India Act of 1935. In Ceylon the reason for conferring these wider functions on the Public Service Commission was to overcome persistent controversy in the field of appointments and promotions in the Public Service and to ensure that with the assumption of greater powers by local ministers in progressing towards self-government the control of the Public Service was excluded from those powers.
13
The composition and functions of the Ceylon Public Service Commission came under review recently in the Report of the Soulbury Commission. The recommendations in that Report left the functions substantially unchanged but made changes in the composition of the Commission. The original composition was the Chief Secretary as Chairman, with two other members were the Financial Secretary and the Legal Secretary. Under the recent recommendations membership is no longer confined to officials. The Commission is to consist of three members, one of whom is Chairman and all are appointed by the Governor in his discretion. Members of the Legislature are not eligible for membership and one but not more than one of the members is to be either a retired public servant or a public servant whose membership of the Commission will be his last appointment under the Ceylon Government.
14
sic:
The establishment of Public Service Commissions in the West African Colonies has recently been recommended in the Report of the Salaries Commission on the West African Civil Services. No steps have yet been taken to implement these recommendations but the proposals were that the functions of these Commissions should extend to appointments and promotions and that the Commission should include one unofficial member of the Legislative Council.
In