(Specialist Openings Too)

There are opportunities in the service of the Wellington City Council for young graduates to establish themselves and advance on merit.

In some Departments access to the senior positions is through years of acceptance of professional or technical responsibility. Positions are increasingly being developed in which the discipline of reading for a degree makes a notable contribution to advancement. The major work of some Departments, such as the Town Clerk's Department and the City Treasury, is concerned almost entirely with administration, without technical responsibilities of any other kind. Such degrees as those of law, commerce and arts aredistinct recommendations when positions become vacant, and tend to ensure advancement in minimum time to satisfactory senior positions.

The undertaking of the Wellington City Council is a very big and diversified organisation by any measure: its standards of service arehigh and the Council is always concerned to improve the calibre of its officers. The Council has expert professional members in many fields, and during the present period of national shortage of skilled labour in most occupations there are opportunities to secure positions in its service. These are permanent positions, professionally graded and rewarded, carrying superannuation rights and opportunities for promotion, and are comparable in every way with those in the Public Service.

City Treasury

Local body finance is highly specialised and requires particular training and experience which can best be obtained with such a body as the Wellington City Council.

Modern equipment is a feature of accounting work for the City, allowing elbow-room for modern methods: business machines, punch card equipment, are both employed on a considerable scale. Management accounting is important and provides one of the ways in which reports are made accurately and expeditiously to controlling committees: punch card costing ensures speed and accuracy: accounting for manufacturing and for sales and service require particular aids and techniques. More generally, there are the problems of large-scale financing, the Annual Departmental Estimates and the complications of public body Loan Finance.

Libraries

In Libraries there is always room for University graduates, and the prospects for those with Arts, Science and some other degrees are excellent. Progress has already been made in divorcing professional library work from routine clerical processes, for which other staff is employed. Before a graduate can call himself a librarian he must be accepted by the Library School and undergo training for an academic year of nine months. A living allowance is paid by the Government.

Major City services such as the Wellington Public Libraries provide one of the most pleasant and rewarding avenues of library work, and can offer a wide variety of positions.

Electricity—A Trading Department

All of the three Trading Departments, with the general departments, rely largely on modern equipment. To take one as an example, the Wellington City Council is the Electrical Supply Authority for Wellington City, including practically all the suburbs, and for Makara County. Its up-to-date equipment includes 33,000 volt and 11,000 volt transmission, mainly by underground cables, a supervisory control system, converting plant for electric traction and a network of 11,000 volt cables serving 200 substations.

As may be expected, the Department requires and has on its staff engineers qualified to deal with every aspect of electricity supply, and thus there are opportunities for properly qualified men to obtain a really wide range of experience.

In all, there are ten departments: Town Clerk's, Treasury, City Solicitor's, the three Trading Departments, Libraries, Parks and Reserves, Traffic, and the City Engineers Department.

Classification the Key to a Library

City Engineer's Department

There is not space to deal with all of these, but something must be said of the City Engineer's Department, which is the works department of the Council. It employs a large staff of civil engineers, architects, surveyors, town planners, etc.—the officers necessary to deal with the construction and maintenance of streets and allied works, waterworks and drainage, both sewerage and stormwater: also to operate the cleansing services—street cleansing, refuse disposal—and the health services and operation of swimming baths. The Department's building operations alone are on a very large scale.

In the City Engineer's Department openings may be found for careers in Civil or Structural Engineering, Architecture, Quantity Surveying and Town Planning, apart from avenues for such specialised work as that of the Waterworks and Drainage Branches and the Building Division.

No engineering graduate can be registered and practice on his own account until he has had three years' appropriate practical experience. The Department affords opportunities for this to be obtained with a body of considerable standing, and provides continuing careers for those who wish to remain and perhaps specialise.

In this Department, as in others, there are opportunities for bursaries on a cadet-ship basis, and there are sometimes financial advantages in arranging for an interview before qualifying.

Drainage Engineer inspects tunnel under construction