§ MR. CLELAND (Glasgow, Bridgeton)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the rank and rates of salary of the Customs officers engaged at the large outports of Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and Belfast on checking duties in connection with the tea accounts, and the average length of service of such officers; what was the grade or grades provided with Treasury sanction, in Customs General Order 25/1901, and subsequently, for similar duties in the Tea Accounts Office, London, and the salaries appertaining thereto; and whether lower section port clerks with a total length of service of less than seven years, and of corresponding inexperience, are frequently employed on checking duties in the Tea Accounts Branch of the Long Room, London.
(Answered by Mr. Runciman.) I am informed that the checking duties in connection with the tea accounts kept at the ports of Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow and Belfast are performed by examining officers, first class, whose scale of salary is from £230 to £340. The average service of the officers concerned is twenty-eight and a half years. The duties in question at the four ports named are unimportant in volume, and form only a small portion of the daily work of the officers. In the Tea Accounts Office, London, the more important checking duties are assigned to clerks of the upper section of the second class, whose scale of salary is from £200 to £300, and the less important to clerks of the lower section of the second class (salary £70 to £200), and abstractors (salary £80 to £150), and assistant clerks (salary £55 to £150), the abstractors and assistant clerks having checking allowances of £30 per annum. These allowances were sanctioned by the Treasury, 51 and communicated to the Customs department in the General Order referred to. Lower section clerks of short service are not frequently employed on the more important checking work, such employment being limited to periods of absence by leave or sickness of upper section clerks, or of exceptional pressure.