§ 12. Mr. BARNSTONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether surveyors of Excise origin of six years' service in the grade are actually in receipt of a lower salary than some unattached surveyors of 1459 Customs origin recently appointed; and, if so, whether he can see his way to improve the position of these men?
§ Mr. MASTERMANCertain members of the new surveyor grade, who were formerly second-class supervisors of Excise, are at slightly lower salaries than certain others, recently appointed, who were formerly first-class examining officers of Customs. This is due to the fact that the latter, as first-class examining officers in the old organisation, had salaries slightly in excess of the minimum salary of the new grade of surveyors, whose scale their own scale overlapped, and they entered that grade at those salaries. There is, therefore, no reason for taking any action as suggested.
§ 13. Mr. BARNSTONasked whether recently several unattached surveyors of Customs origin have been promoted to districts; how long were they in the grade previous to being transferred to districts; and will he say whether at the time of their transference there were more than thirty unattached surveyors senior to them; and, if so, what was the cause for this disregard of precedent?
§ Mr. MASTERMANTwenty-two unattached surveyors were recently appointed to districts, some of which had formerly been Customs districts and some Excise. Ten of these surveyors were men of Customs origin who had been included in the new grade in May last. At the time of their appointment there were some thirty unattached surveyors of Excise origin who had been included in the new grade some months earlier. These appointments were made, after full consideration, by the Board of Customs and Excise. There are no precedents applicable to the present transitional stage of amalgamation.