Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSasked whether the attendants and repairers at the Public Record Office are divided into first and second class; whether the scale of the salaries of the first-class attendants is 39s. a week, rising by an annual increment to 45s. per week, and of the second-class attendants 22s. per week, rising by au annual increment of 1s. 6d. to 37s. per week; whether the duties of the two classes are the same; whether promotion from the second to the first class is not by death or retirement, and is therefore remote and improbable; and whether he will consider the advisability of abolishing the class system, as has been done already at the Post Office, at Somerset House, the War Office, and the British Museum?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe salaries of the two classes are as stated in the question, but, in addition, one superintendent, three foremen, and three sub-foremen receive additional allowances. The numbers in the two classes are, first class, including superintendent, 16; second class, 26. The proportion of men in the higher class is, having regard to the value of the work required to be done, liberal. A block of promotion does sometimes occur. It is not the case that the duties of the two classes are identical. The attendants of the first class are employed chiefly in the arrangement and classification of the records and in duties of superintendence, those of the second class in the production of records from the strong rooms as required. The first-class repairers are, as a matter of course, employed on work requiring a greater amount of skill and experience than that entrusted to the men of the second class. The division of Civil servants into classes or grades is quite usual, and there does not seem to be a case for amalgamating the two classes.