1. Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSONasked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that considerable dissatisfaction is felt by many advisory pension councils at the Southborough Committee's Report; and will he undertake that no efficient official employed in any area office is removed in order to be replaced by a permanent civil servant?
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Lieut.-Colonel Stanley)My right hon. Friend has caused advisory councils to be made acquainted with the additional provision made by the Government for granting permanent unestablished positions to temporary salaried ex-service officials, which was included in the general settlement recently negotiated. My right hon. Friend is considering the steps to be taken to give effect to this provision in the Ministry of Pensions.
§ 24. Mr. MONTAGUEasked the Minister of Pensions how many men have been discharged as redundant in the past 12 months and how many are ex-service men; and whether, seeing that there is a large decrease in the volume of work, he will in future report non-service men to the substitution board for employment in other departments and retain the ex-service men with temporary appointments in the service of the Ministry?
Lieut.-Colonel STANLEYI regret that it is not possible to distinguish between reductions in staff caused by voluntary resignation and redundancy, but during the last twelve months the temporary male staff, which is almost wholly ex-service, was reduced from 11,607 to 9,509. The great bulk of the temporary non-service men have been discharged long ago and, excluding medical officers and technical staff employed in institutions, there are now only five non-service men temporarily employed in the Ministry, and of these three are actually under notice. The Joint Substitution Board was specially constituted to deal with ex-service men only, and I fear therefore that the hon. Member's suggestion could not be adopted.