§ 38. Miss PICKFORDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is prepared to undertake that during the present abnormal period, when opportunities for salary improvements in the Civil Service are restricted, such vacancies as do arise in the clerical and executive grades shall be filled by promotion from qualified officers in the lower ranks?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha)I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on the 30th November to the hon. Member for South-East St. Pancras (Sir A. Bait). It would not be in the public interest to dispense entirely with open competitive examination for the execu 1762 tive and clerical classes but this source is used only for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of Departments after the claims to promotion of all suitable officers already serving have been fully considered.
§ Miss PICKFORDIs the hon. Gentleman aware that the Royal Commission on the Civil Service recommended that the aim should be to provide an adequate avenue of promotion for the clerical writing assistants showing a capacity for better work and up to the standard of those classes; and that recently 15 writing assistants qualified for such promotion in the Ministry of Health for whom no vacancies could be found, while a large number were being taken on from outside—
§ Mr. SPEAKERCaptain Peter Macdonald.