§ MR. JOHN HOLLONDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, To what officer of the Crown the scheme known as "The Playfair Scheme" of re-organisation has been applied, and whether it is intended to apply it to all offices; whether the Treasury is prepared to grant special allowances, under section 7 of the Superannuation Act (22 Vic. c. 26), to all persons willing to retire from office in order that the scheme in question may be applied; and, whether, in offices in which clerks of obsolete establishments remain unabsorbed, steps have been taken to secure to lower division clerks the advantages of duty pay hold out to them in the 16th Clause of the Order in Council of the 12th of February 1876?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHSir, I am afraid I cannot adequately reply to the hon. Member without asking the House to allow me to exceed, in some degree, the usual limits of an 7 answer. I should explain, first of all, that the Playfair Scheme had its origin in the Report of a Departmental Committee of Inquiry, appointed in 1874, which the present Chairman of Committees presided over; but that the Report of this, as of all similar Committees, amounted to no more than a recommendation which the Government of the day might or might not, in the exercise of its discretion, adopt. A reference to the Order in Council of February 12, 1876, will show my hon. Friend the extent to which the Playfair Scheme has been adopted by the Government. Effect was given to so much only of the Report as provided for the introduction of a lower division into the Civil Service; and if hon. Members will refer to the Civil Service Establishment Estimates, they will find that clerks in the Lower Division have been largely adopted throughout the Service; and I may add that the Treasury is constantly being called upon to further the gradual re-organization of Offices on that basis. With respect to the Upper Division, the Government regard the Playfair Scheme as one way among several in which such a division may be formed; but they have not adopted it as the sole way of forming such a division. With regard to the second part of the Question, the Treasury is certainly not prepared to commit itself in unqualified terms to grant special allowances to all persons willing to retire from office in order that the scheme in question may be applied. Each case of the kind must be judged on its own merits, and the test applied to them must be the promise which they severally afford of increased economy and efficiency in the particular Office under consideration. Until this point is settled in each case, no question about special allowances to individuals can arise. With regard to the last part of the hon. Member's Question, I presume he refers to Offices in which clerks of some existing scale, which allows salaries above those of the Lower Division, have been permitted to remain on their actual scale of pay until they retire. In such cases, wherever it is possible, the clerks on the old and higher scale of pay are required to perform the duties which might otherwise be allotted to Lower Division clerks with duty pay. It is evident that in such cases the same duties would be paid for twice over, if this last part of 8 the hon. Member's Question were answered in the affirmative; and I must observe that, apart from the actual performance of duties which exceed those covered by the ordinary scale of the Lower Division, no clerk of that Division has any claim whatever to duty pay. The Report of the Committee is in no point more decided than in the distinction which it draws between those periodical payments which are personal to the clerk and those extra payments, called duty pay, which are attached to certain duties, and accrue only to the Lower Division clerk who is called upon to perform and who actually performs them.