§ 42. Mr. RICHARD LAMBERTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether candidates for the Civil Service examinations who offer themselves for military service will be entitled to deduct the period of military service from their age, if they return safely, for the purposes of the examination; whether they will be granted a further twelve months for preparation; and whether it is intended to fill vacancies in the Civil Service according to the lists of those who passed at the last examination?
§ Mr. ACLANDAs regards the first and second parts of the question I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on the 4th February last to the Member for East Edinburgh. As regards the third part, some vacancies which it is indispensably necessary to fill are being filled by candidates from the last examination, but places will be reserved for successful candidates at open competitive examinations who are unable to take up their civil situations owing to absence on military duties.
§ 43. Mr. LAMBERTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether no intermediate Civil Service examinations for junior appointments are to be held this year; if so, whether he will give the reasons for this short notice, seeing that it was only given within ten weeks of the usual date of the examination, and that boys leaving public schools train for two years in order to sit for this examination; and whether the Civil Service Commissioners can see their way to hold the examination as usual in July, but to announce that no candidates passing it would be allowed to enter the service until the end of the War?
§ Mr. ACLANDNo examination for junior appointments (intermediate class) will be held this summer. The necessity of consulting Departments recruited from these examinations and the uncertain conditions caused by the War made it impracticable to give longer notice of the decision. The Civil Service Commissioners see no reason to advocate an alteration of this decision, and I am not prepared to modify it.
§ 53. Mr. KINGasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Civil Service Commissioners have announced that no further examinations for junior appointments (intermediate class) will be held; whether such appointments will now cease to be made; and, if this class of appointments be not abolished, how vacancies arising will be filled?
§ Mr. ACLANDThe Civil Service Commissioners have announced that no examination for junior appointments (intermediate class) will be held this summer. The period in which vacancies may be filled from the competition held in January last has not yet expired. The question of holding competitions of this class while the War continues will be considered as occasion may arise.
§ Mr. KINGIs the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of candidates have been preparing for two years for this examination and now, a few weeks before it is to be held, they are told that no examination is to be held at all?
§ Mr. ACLANDIt is not considered desirable to hold examinations when there are no vacancies to be filled.