§ Mr. HENRY KIMBER (Wandsworth)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Treasury have considered the advisability of providing for the performance of the temporary clerical labour required in certain Departments in the manner recommended by the Royal Commission on Civil 1461 Establishments, viz.: by the employment of men and boys who have passed examination for man clerkships and who are waiting for appointment, or by boy clerks, or boy copyists, in lieu of employing the large number of personal clerks shown in the Return, No. 288, presented 1st July last; whether the personal clerks referred to in the said Return, including those employed in the legal Departments on account of legal qualifications, could he appointed by open competition and after examination by the Civil Service Commissioners: and whether lie will cause inquiry to be made, by means of a special Inter Departmental Committee, into the necessity in each case specified in the said Return of maintaining the existing arrangement as to the employment of personal clerks?
§ MR. RITCHIE (for Mr. HANBURY)My right hon. Friend asks me to say that the recommendation of the Ridley Commission was that urgent but temporary clerical work should be met by employing for a definite period and on particular work men or boys who have passed the examination for the 2nd Division and have not yet been appointed to it. This recommendation is followed as far as possible, but in the first place, if the expectant clerk is only unattached for a few weeks, it is obviously difficult to assign him to work which may last for as many months, and, secondly, it is only the simpler and more rudimentary forms of work- which can be entrusted to him. For instance, the mere fact of having passed the 2nd Division examination would clearly not qualify him for service under the Official Receiver or Treasury Solicitor. The theory of personal clerks is that they are employed, not in the Civil Service, but as the personal assistants of heads of Departments, who both select them and are held directly responsible for their work, and this principle could not be maintained if they were appointed by open competition. No head of a Department is allowed to employ such personal assistants until the particular circumstances of the case have been carefully considered at the Treasury, and nothing would be gained by transferring the responsibility from the Treasury to an Inter-Departmental Committee.