§ MR. THORNTON (Clapham)To ask the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that among the senior assistant clerks in the Education Department at South Kensington, there are certain of them of long service who have reached the maximum salary if their class, £150 per annum; that they have appealed for an improvement in their positions and have been informed that the only means open is by promotion to the second division is opportunity offers; whether the Treasury have recently refused to sanction a recommendation from the Department to promote certain senior assistant clerks to the second division and what prospect is before these men; and whether any encouragement can be offered them by conceding personal 999 allowances of the same nature as already sanctioned by the Treasury in the Department.
§ (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The various statements in the Question give, I think, a somewhat misleading impression of what has happened. It appears that the number of assistant clerks who have in recent years been promoted, in the South Kensington branch of the Board's offices, into the second division is very high in proportion to the men taken into the second division by open competition, and certain proposals made by the Board of Education this year for promotions of this kind were on this ground not accepted by the Treasury. In reply to the last paragraph of the Question, the few additions of salary, to which, I presume, the hon. Member's Question refers, were granted by special Treasury sanction, in recognition of special duties performed by certain assistant clerks. There are not at the present time any other duties of such a special nature as would justify the payment of further additional sums of the like kind to any of the assistant clerks in question.