§ MR. H. KIMBER (Wandsworth)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether certain temporary staff posts in some departments of the Civil Service, to which clerks of the second division have been appointed, have had attached to them the condition that the recipient shall "mark time" before receiving his first increment of salary, for a period in each case equivalent to that which would 208 have elapsed without promotion and in the ordinary course between the date of his promotion and the attainment of the initial salary of the staff post; whether the six second division staff posts in the Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade, scheduled in the Civil Service Estimates for the year 1896–7 (Class II., Sub-Head A. I.) as being two at £210, three at £250, and one at £270, are subject to this condition; whether the three other second division staff posts in the same office, included under the same sub-head, are not so subject, but have attached to them an annual increment of salary from the date of first appointment; and, if so, what is the reason of this inequality of treatment; whether the system of withholding from persons promoted to superior posts in the clerical departments of the Civil Service the advantage usually attaching to such promotion of an annual increment of salary was ever followed to any appreciable extent prior to the Session of 1893 or 1894, and whether it is intended to apply it to other promotions of a similar character in other departments; and whether he will take steps to secure that staff posts to which second division clerks are promoted should at least be of equal value to appointments to the upper grade of the second division, viz., £250 to £350 a year by annual increments of £10?
§ MR. AKERS-DOUGLASTemporary staff posts of the second division are common to all departments. They were first created in view of the fact that the division, then newly formed, was mainly composed of junior officers. The posts will die out as the division reaches its normal development. The temporary salary is fixed in each case with strict reference to the nature of the particular work to be done. For instance, if a junior clerk is necessarily employed on work worth £200 a year, he is at once paid at that rate, and continues to receive it until he would have reached £200 in ordinary course, when he proceeds by annual increments to the maximum of the scale of the division. On the other hand, there are cases in which the work is more suitably remunerated by a scale. The suggestion in the Question that the salaries of all staff posts of the second division should 209 be at least £250 rising by £10 to £350 would be very extravagant and altogether beyond the requirements of the case.