§ 11. Mr. THURTLE (for Mr. GARDNER)asked the Secretary of State for War, seeing that in 1914 the Contracts Directorate included one director, one principal (assistant director), and two assistant principals, with salaries amounting to £3,495, if he will state the reasons 212 for the increase in the staff, as shown in the Estimates for 1928, to one director, one deputy director, two assistant directors, five deputy assistant directors, and six contract officers, with salaries amounting to £13,458; and, seeing that the cost of the entire staff of the Contracts Directorate in March, 1914, was estimated to be £13,395, if he has under consideration the possibility of reducing the estimated expenditure for 1928 of £34,687?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans)Any comparison between pre-War and present day staffs based on nomenclature is misleading, since the general post-War reorganisation of the Civil Service introduced new gradings with corresponding rearrangement of duties. The increase in staff of the Army Contracts Directorate is mainly due in the first place to the heavy increase in the number of technical and experimental stores dealt with as a result of the progressive mechanisation of the Army, the introduction of wireless telegraphy and other modern equipment; in the second place to improved methods of costings investigation; and thirdly to the extended system of co-ordination between Departments. On the second and third heads I have every reason to believe that the cost of the increased staff is more than counterbalanced by the economies which they effect. The possibility of reducing staff when such reduction is in the public interest is continually under review.