§ MR. P. J. POWER (Waterford, E.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the Lords of the Treasury will be pleased to recommend to the Civil Service Commissioners that the allowance of service from actual age, when reckoning the same for a Civil Service competition, granted to registered copyists, be extended to private clerks to surveyors of taxes, who perform analogous duties to those of copyists, and, though not admitted by examination, have to be certified as competent to the Board of Inland Revenue by the surveyor by whom employed?
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT, Oldham)The conditions of the employment by surveyors of taxes of private clerks do not differ from those under which many other uncertificated persons are privately engaged by certain officers of the public service who are allowed a lump sum for the purpose, and exceptional regulations could not therefore be made in the special interest of one class of such employés. Moreover, it is the essence of the rules under which certain persons are now given concessions in regard to age, that they have served the State as 156 soldiers or sailors or as persons with Civil Service certificates—a condition not satisfied in the present case. I am afraid, therefore, that the Treasury would not be justified in accepting my hon. Friend's suggestion.
§ MR. P. J. POWERasked whether, in view of the fact that the duties of clerks had increased and that the correspondence they had to deal with was of a private and confidential character, the Secretary to the Treasury would not do something to remove the grave dissatisfaction that existed among the clerks.
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, he was aware that dissatisfaction existed, but it would be impossible to do what the hon. Member wished without doing it also for clerks in other departments who were in a similar position.