HC Deb 22 February 1876 vol 227 cc677-8
MR. RITCHIE

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he would explain to the House why, by the 12th Section of the Order in Council relating to the Civil Service, writers are precluded from being appointed to the lower division of clerks unless they have, previously to the Order in Council, served as writers for a period of not less than three years, even although they can "produce certificates from the heads of the department in which they are serving that it is desirable, in the interests of the Public Service, to retain and employ them in the same department," and they can "prove their fitness by a supplementary examination?"

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

, in reply, said, the object of the Order in Council was to give effect to the recommendations of the Civil Service Commissioners. They recommended the appointment of what was known as "a lower division of the Civil Service;" and if his hon. Friend had read the able Report of that Commission, he would see that they laid very great stress upon the steps which were taken for constituting that lower division, and especially they pointed out that it would lead to the entire collapse of the plan if the general body of writers should be transferred to the new lower division. The object of the Order in Council was therefore to establish the lower division upon an entirely new footing; but as a matter of equitable consideration of the claims of those who had been for a considerable time employed as writers, exceptional provision was made that, under certain circumstances, those who had been for more than three years on the list of writers might be exceptionally admitted into the lower division. The Government thought they had gone as far as it was right for them to go in making that provision. Nobody had any right to complain of not being included in this exceptional favour; because all the writers who had entered since 1870 had entered with a perfect knowledge of the terms upon which they were engaged, and they were not put in a worse position than that which they previously occupied.