HC Deb 28 May 1897 vol 49 cc1510-1
MR. J. P. FARRELL (Cavan, W.)

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any complaints have reached him from the various classes of clerks in Her Majesty's Stationery Office as to their employment on duties of a superior nature to those specified in the regulations under which they were appointed; whether in one branch of that Department clerks of the old establishment, clerks of the second division, abstractors, and boy copyists are employed side by side on precisely similar duties; and whether considering the long period that has elapsed since the staff of this Department has been re-organised, he will consider the advisability of appointing a Departmental Committee of Inquiry?

*MR. HANBURY

No, Sir; I am not aware of such complaints by the various classes of clerks referred to. I am assured that in no branch of the Stationery Office do the several classes of clerks named work together on precisely similar duties. It is the fact that the work and the conditions in which it is done have much changed since the last rearrangement in 1879, and I have assented to a suggestion which the Controller recently made to me that the organization of his office should now be inquired into by a Departmental Committee.