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5. All debts and liabilities of any school board or secondary education committee whose powers and duties are transferred by or in pursuance of this Act to an education authority shall become debts and liabilities of that authority and shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be defrayed by them out of the education fund of the education area:
Provided that any surplus or deficiency shown in the accounts of a school board, made up and balanced as at the appointed day, shall in the year succeeding the transfer be taken into account by the authority in determining the amount which they certify to the parish council or councils levying poor rate in the area which formed the district of that school board, to be imposed, levied, and collected as education rate therein, under the Section of this Act relating to expenses of education authorities.
10. Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889 (which relates to compensation to existing officers), shall,
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with the necessary modifications, apply to officers transferred under this Act or by this Act declared to be entitled to compensation, who by virtue of this Act or anything done in pursuance or in consequence thereof suffer direct pecuniary loss by abolition of office or by diminution or loss of fees or salary subject as follows:
§ Mr. MUNROI beg to move, in paragraph 5, after the word "the" ["deficiency shown in the"], to insert in the Bill the word "revenue." This is a drafting Amendment.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. MUNROI beg to move, at the end of paragraph 5, to insert,
6. A parish council shall, in imposing, levying, and collecting the education rate, take into account any sum standing at the credit or debit of the council in respect of any balance of school rate already levied by them.This Amendment is intended to provide for a detail of some practical importance. A parish council, on receiving a mandate to raise a given sum for school rates, proceeds to raise the sum as exactly as may be, but the proceeds actually collected may be a little less or a little more. There may be arrears of rates which are levied but not recovered at the time. The same will be the case with regard to the new education authority; but for any balance one way or the other there is already provision made in Clause 13, Subsection (4). There may, however, be a balance either way in respect of the old school rate outstanding at the appointed day when the new system comes into force. The Amendment directs the parish council to take account of this in levying the new education rate. That, I think, the House will probably agree is a reasonable Amendment.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. MUNROI beg to move, at the end of paragraph 10 (a), to insert in the Bill the words,
(b) The reference to the Acts and Rules relating to His Majesty's Civil Service shall be construed as a reference to the Acts and Rules which were in operation at the date of the passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889.233 This Amendment is really a drafting Amendment. It is proposed in accordance with an answer I gave in Committee to some questions which were put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley. Section 120 of the Local Government Act, 1889, which is here applied, limited the amount of compensation to that payable on the abolition of offices under the Acts and Rules which relate to the Civil Service. It was thought fair to apply these Acts and Rules as they then stood, not as they have since been modified, particularly by and under the Superannuation Act of 1899. A provision identical with this appeared in the recent English Act.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ The following Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD:
§
At the end of paragraph 10, to insert the words,
(e) Notwithstanding the terms of Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government, (Scotland) Act, 1889, the compensation to be paid to any officer, either whole or part time, who suffers pecuniary loss as above-mentioned, shall be calculated on the basis of one-sixtieth of the average salary and emoluments of such officer during the three years immediately preceding the passing of this Act for each completed year of service, and so far as inconsistent with this proviso Sub-section (2) of Section one hundred and twenty of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1889, shall not apply.
§ Mr. SPEAKERWith regard to this Amendment, I am not sufficiently acquainted to be able to say whether or no the new proposed scale of compensation is in excess of that which now exists. If it is less than the present scale, the Amendment would be in order, but if it is in excess of the present scale the Amendment would be out of order.
Mr. MACDONALDYes, Sir; it would be in excess of the present scale. May I explain the purposes of the Amendment? It has been represented to me that the provision of the Kill as it stands would operate unjustly in the case of a good many part-time officers. The Act of 1908 proposed considerable additional duties on these officers, and the boards in Scotland were extremely slow in increasing the emoluments of those officers for the additional work imposed upon them by the Act. It is only within the last few years, and in some cases, I am told only within the last two years that the boards have recognised that the Act of 1908 did impose large additional duties 234 upon these officers, and only within that time the increased pay has been given. These men say that if there is to be an average, it is fair to them that the average should be limited to the last three years rather than extend over the last five years. It is obvious that that would mean an increase in the allowance to them if their services were dispensed with by the authority.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI am afraid that cannot be dealt with on Report. It ought to have been raised in Committee.