CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION. (Hansard, 11 February 1932)

§ Mr. LANSBURY
Are we not to hear anything about this Estimate?

§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Major Elliot)
The receipts are mostly derived from fees paid by candidates for Civil Service examinations. It had been intended to hold examinations this year, but as they are not needed this year, there is the saving on the fees for examination. Per contra, however, the expenditure for examiners has not to be met, but this is less than the receipts. On the whole we thus make a slight loss, and consequently we have to ask the Committee for this small sum in the Estimate.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
Is it not possible for the Financial Secretary to tell us why the examinations are not to be held? Is there a reduction in the number of people required in the Civil Service, or what is the reason for it?

§ Major ELLIOT
The Leader of the Opposition will realise that the desirability of holding examinations is governed by whether we anticipate the need for extra staff, or whether it is thought probable that the staff may not be required. Consequently, it is not necessary to hold examinations for people who may not be needed for the Service.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I am not blaming the Treasury or anyone else, but you get here another example of the ever-increasing number of people who are trained, but for whom there is no outlet. 1064 I am certain there are thousands of parents who have made great sacrifices to get their children properly trained in order to enter the Civil Service, and at least for this year that avenue of employment is closed. When it is remembered that nearly every similar sort of avenue is being closed, it will be seen that the unemployment problem will concern not only the ordinary worker but what is called the black-coated worker as well. There will be a great deal of disappointment among a considerable number of young people whose chance of getting a start in life is wiped out because of the prevailing depressed conditions, not only in the country generally, but even in Government employment.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I want to raise a question which I raised with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and another Minister the other day. I understand that the Civil Service Commissioners are a body responsible for passing into the public service young men and women who wish to become permanent civil servants. In recent times new appointments have been made in many Departments. Large numbers of people have been passed into the public service. Under the recent Traffic Act a considerable number of people were appointed. I want to know whether they underwent any examination or test by the Civil Service Commissioners. Many of them, admittedly, were technical people who require technical skill rather than the ability to pass a literary test, but surely we do not appoint men to the public service on the basis of the possession of technical skill without some test being applied to ascertain whether they have that technical skill or not. A year or two ago, for example, when the totalisator business was established, a number of people got into a semi-public service. I should imagine, too, that additions were made to the staff of the Ministry of Labour as a result of the means test. I cannot imagine that the additional work of paying transitional benefit through the public assistance committees was done without the appointment of some new officers. [Interruption.] I wish the hon. and learned Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight) would not assume that he is a junior Member of the Government, because he sits near the Front Bench.

§ Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT
The appointments are a matter of common knowledge.

§ Mr. MAXTON
Obviously, the hon. and learned Member does not understand the point I am making. It is a new function, and there has to be some co-ordination between the work of the local authorities and that of the Ministry of Labour. I am asking if new men have been appointed to perform that particular function, and, if so, how they have been recruited? Have all the additional public servants who have been appointed during the last 12 months had to go the road of the Civil Service Commission, and paid the ordinary fee which candidates for the Service such as a telegraphist, a woman clerk or a first division clerk has got to pay? If so, it would not be necessary for the Treasury to come to us for this Supplementary Estimate. There have been complaints, particularly about the traffic appointments.

§ Mr. HANNON
May I ask for your guidance, Sir Dennis? This Estimate is for salaries and expenses of the Civil Service Commission. Can the hon. Gentleman raise a question affecting the employment of clerks or other officers by the Ministry of Labour? This relates to the Civil Service Commission itself, apart from other public Departments. Surely the hon. Member cannot in this Debate introduce the question of the appointment of supernumerary people by other Departments.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has asked the question. I was following the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) very carefully, because I was not sure how far he was or was not in order in the matter he was discussing. He was, obviously, in order in asking a question the answer to which I do not know myself on which the whole of this point of order depends, that is to say, how far these persons in the employment of the Government are persons who would come under this Supplementary Estimate as having passed through the ordinary Civil Service Examination. He is quite entitled, of course, to ask what persons do come within and what persons are outside it, and I can allow the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to reply to the hon. Member to that extent. But so far as the servants 1066 of the Crown who are employed by any Department of the Government are concerned, but who do not go through these examinations, I am afraid that that matter cannot be discussed.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
The point is that an examination is ordinarily held to pass entrants into the Civil Service. It was not held although it should have been held, and the saving should not have been made. Persons are passing into the Civil Service, not through examinations, but through some other method.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I think that the point will best be dealt with by the Financial Secretary replying to the question already raised. If he goes too far in his reply, I shall say so.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I am asking for information which is necessary before the Committee can give an intelligent vote. Is the Treasury entitled to ask for this additional money for the Civil Service Commission? That is the problem that the Committee is asked to decide. Shall we grant the Treasury this additional £1,500 for this particular branch of the public service? We maintain this machinery for passing people into the public service, we maintain a permanent staff and we pay that permanent staff all the year round. When an examination takes place additional staff is brought in, but there is the permanent staff all the time. The reason why the Supplementary Estimate is demanded is because no examinations have been held or, at any rate, only a limited number of examinations. The standing expenses, however, have gone on and there is no income. The income is normally derived from the candidates who present themselves for admission into one or other branch of the Service.
My point is that the Government who ask for this Supplementary Estimate have deliberately passed people into the permanent Civil Service without either literary examination or technical examination, where technical skill is required. They have passed them into the permanent Civil Service without the payment of the recognised examination fees. I would like to complete what I have to say, and perhaps the Financial Secretary will be able to wipe the floor with me afterwards. The appointments of tariff commissioners have been throughout the 1067 whole country the subject of very grave discontent amongst the population. There are 3,000,000 of unemployed people, a large number of whom possess high skill and good educational attainments, and they find that into these public appointments are placed a type of person who raise the ire of the community tremendously—ex-police inspectors, ex-chief constables, who have been retired from the public service as unfitted for the job that they knew.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I think the hon. Member is going too far, at any rate until I have heard what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has to say, because if, under the present system, these people are not people who would in the ordinary way be candidates for these particular examinations, we cannot discuss the question of their appointment.

§ Mr. HANNON
Has not the Minister of Transport power under his statutory authority to appoint servants to his own Department, apart from the Civil Service Commission?

§ Mr. MAXTON
So has the Minister of Health.

§ The CHAIRMAN
That is the point at issue, and one on which I think it would be convenient before the Committee goes further that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should make a statement to the Committee.

§ Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL
Are not the Government now carrying out the pledge that was given to the House? One of the reasons why less money is being paid to the Civil Service Commission is that the House were asked for a pledge that certain ex-service men and non-pensionable men should be given an opportunity of continuing their employment in the Service. Members of Parliament thought that they had been treated harshly and unjustly and that it was necessary for them to be continued in the Service. Is not that one of the reasons why the Civil Service—

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Baronet is now following the same subject on which I stopped the hon. Member for Bridgeton. I think we had better not proceed any further until I have heard what the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has to say.

§ Major ELLIOT
I think I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). The Civil Service Commission was constituted by Order in Council in May, 1855, for the purpose of testing the qualifications of young men who might from time to time be proposed to be appointed to junior situations in any of His Majesty's civil establishments. For that purpose, a large number of candidates, successful and unsuccessful, were subjected to examination. A fee is charged to all who enter the examination, both the successful and unsuccessful ones. It is a case of "many are called but few are chosen." When other Services are being dealt with it is not accurate, as the hon. Member seems to suggest, that the candidates do not pay a fee. They do pay a fee. The fee is charged to the successful and not to the unsuccessful candidate. If a Service is taken over en bloc the persons are taken over along with it.
When appointments are made from outside sources an examination is still held into the technical qualifications of the candidates by a selection board, but a relatively small number of fees are received on account of that. The hon. Member would be the last to suggest that examinations should be held for the purpose of collecting fees from a large number of people who would not get a chance of entering the Civil Service. The hon. Member wishes to know whether examinations normally take place. They do normally take place in respect of untrained persons, "young persons" who are subject to a general test. You cannot judge whether they are qualified or not because, by hypothesis, they are untrained. Some of those examinations are temporarily in abeyance. A certain number of trained persons also have been subject to examinations of a different kind. The hon. Member asks if they have paid fees. They have paid fees. That examination covers a much smaller field than the wider examination of untrained persons. Thus the receipts have been smaller and we have to ask the House for the Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I am afraid that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has not satisfied me as fully as he promised to do. I hope that he has satisfied the Chair as to the question of order.

§ The CHAIRMAN
He has satisfied me that these trained persons who are admitted to the Civil Service and who undergo examination are not people who can be discussed on this Supplementary Estimate, because this Supplementary Estimate deals not with the cases of those who have been appointed but those who have not been appointed and who have not submitted themselves or been asked to submit themselves for examination.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
The point arises that men have been appointed and have not undergone an examination.

§ The CHAIRMAN
Do not let us go astray. The Financial Secretary says that these people have undergone examination. Therefore, it is perfectly certain that their appointment cannot be discussed on this Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
With all due deference, this point is in conflict. The hon. Member for Bridgeton does not deny that they have been appointed, but the point of conflict is that they have not been appointed by the Civil Service Commission, and that an examination should have been held. We say that men have been appointed who have not been appointed through the Commission.

§ The CHAIRMAN
That point cannot be discussed now.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I will limit myself to the fact that there is a. loss of revenue and that this Supplementary Estimate is being asked for because there has been a loss of revenue owing to the fact that people are being passed into the public service in large numbers without having gone through the ordinary routine and having entered for a public, open competitive examination.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I think the hon. Member is wrong. These are not people who would be subject to the particular examination which has not been held.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I may be quite out of date in regard to this matter, because my association with young people trying to enter the Civil Service dates back for some considerable time; but I do know that throughout the country there are large numbers of young people who set themselves at an early age to enter the Civil Service in one branch or another. 1070 They begin to prepare themselves, they go into considerable expense and they know that they have to pay a fee, pass health tests, etc., and at the same time take the risk of being beaten. It was not a case of one examination, but probably 10 or 20 different types of examination according to the grade of the Service which the candidate wished to enter, it might be the Post Office, for sorters or telegraphists, Customs, Excise, Surveyors of Taxes, Second Division, boy clerks, women clerks, or First Division. All these examinations were held by the Civil Service Commission. The Financial Secretary will bear me out when I say that medical men admitted into the public service had to go through a Civil Service examination and pay the ordinary fees.
My point is that in recent years there has been a tendency to depart from the principle of recruiting the public service by open competitive examination, and a, reversion to the vicious system that operates to a very large extent outwith this country and that probably operated here until the Act of 1855 was introduced to stop it—the vicious system of making Civil Service appointments the subject of patronage by the Government of the day. This Supplementary Estimate is asked for because instead of a fair and square system of open competitive examination which every citizen in Great Britain could enter, whoever he might be, whatever his rank and parentage, if he had the necessary £1 or two guineas or l0s. 6d. to plank down on the counter, and he was of the appropriate age and could pass the health test. He could go in for the examination with a chance equal to that of anybody else. In recent times, however, successive Governments have been using the development of new Services and the establishment of new Departments for the purpose of pushing people whose qualifications are, to say the least, very dubious. The Minister now tells us that it is only the successful fellow who has to pay the fee. Only the man who is ultimately chosen for a particular post pays the examination fee. That is why we are asked for another £1,550. He tells us that it is because the fees were not forthcoming.

§ Major ELLIOT
The hon. Member is mixing up his figures. The question we are discussing is why there is a slight 1071 fall in the revenue which would be available for this Department, and the reason is because the examinations have not been held, as the normal needs of the Service did not require fresh entrants. The other question which he is raising is outside the field covered by the Supplementary Estimate. No new policy has been embarked upon by His Majesty's Government. The normal process of holding or not holding examinations has this year led to the examinations not being held and, therefore, the fees from examinations have not been received. That is why there is the shortage in income.

§ Mr. MAXTON
Will the right hon. and gallant Member tell me whether any examinations at all have been held during the year?

§ Major ELLIOT
There have been certain examinations, but not so many, and that is why the income has fallen below the estimate.

§ Mr. MAXTON
Here we are, at a time when we are looking around for economies, when everybody's pockets are being searched for the last penny, with a Department costing £34,000 per annum and doing no work.

§ Major ELLIOT
The hon. Member surely does not expect me to take that seriously. The £34,000 is not the cost of the Department; it is the Appropriation-in-Aid. We are not discussing the general question of the Civil Service Commission but merely the limited question of this Appropriation-in-Aid. A general discussion of the Department would be out of order on this Supplementary Estimate.

§ Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS
What we are discussing, as I understand it, is the question as to whether it was right or not to hold these examinations. The right hon. and gallant Member knows that during recent months a great deal of overtime has been worked by civil servants. Is it right that no examinations should be held to recruit further civil servants so that the amount of overtime might be diminished? I suggest that it is perfectly in order to discuss the question as to whether this artificial restriction of the number of civil servants owing to the failure to hold examinations in the ordinary way has not led to the unde- 1072 sirable results pointed out by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton).

§ Major ELLIOT
On that point of Order, I submit that it would not be in order to discuss that matter now. We are dealing with a question of administration and the reasons for this shortage. The reason is the decision to postpone the examinations. Whether such questions can be entered upon, and how far, I am in your hands, Mr. Chairman, but I think it is quite impossible on this narrow field to consider questions of policy in regard to the Civil Service.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I have made the position perfectly clear. The hon. Member is perfectly entitled to discuss the circumstances under which these particular examinations for a particular class of applicants were not held, but he cannot discuss the question of those persons taken into Government employment who would not be taken in under the ordinary Civil Service examinations. It is obvious that it is not necessary by law for everyone who enters Government service to go through an examination, and if that is what hon. Members desire to discuss they cannot do so now because it can only be done by legislation.

§ Mr. LOGAN
In regard to this additional sum of £1,550, I want to know whether it includes any payments made to what may be called agencies. In regard to public assistance work some of it is being done through agencies and not through the Civil Service. Is any of that amount included in this Estimate?

§ Major ELLIOT
None.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
I should like to know why it has not been thought necessary to hold examinations to fill the vacancies which are occurring in the telephone department, where excessive overtime is being worked. Surely there is room there for fresh applicants. I should also like to ask a question in regard to the transport department. I am not now referring to the high class individuals mentioned by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), but a great many inspectors were appointed by the Minister of Transport in the last Government, and he saw to it that a certain union was well placed. I want to know whether these men went through the usual examinations. The most important 1073 part of an omnibus and of vehicles which run upon the road is the engine; but no engineers were appointed by the Minister of Transport in the Labour Government and you, Mr. Chairman, will understand, therefore, that there is something behind my question.

§ The CHAIRMAN
It is quite obvious that there is something behind the hon. Member's question, but it is something which I cannot allow to be discussed. I have done my best to shut out nothing which can be discussed, but it is quite obvious that those men who have been taken into Government employment and did not go through the regular Civil Ser vice examinations are a class whose appointment and work cannot be discussed on this Estimate.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
The hon. Member for Bridgeton drew attention to the fact that successive Governments are trying to get behind the idea of the usual Civil Service examinations. I have given one definite illustration. I want to ask your opinion on another. Owing to the greater meterisation of industry, coal mines in particular, many new inspectors have been appointed but again no engineers.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member in putting points of Order in this way is continually discussing what I have distinctly ruled cannot be discussed on this Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
Shall I be in order in putting my question about overtime in the telephone department?

§ The CHAIRMAN
If the hon. Member will put his question I will answer him.

§ Major ELLIOT
A certain amount of overtime is being worked in certain Government Departments, but only for short periods. If people were taken into the Civil Service to do this work, it might lead to redundancy. It is not necessary to take on fresh staff to deal with temporary overtime.

§ Mr. MAXTON
What I cannot understand is what is happening in this Department. I can understand a department where you economise and cut things down; but you have public departments which are expanding. The Post Office is one, and normal wastage is bound to take place. People are bound to retire 1074 and it is absolutely necessary that recruitment should take place. The Post Office is a branch of the public service which attracts large numbers to its competitive examinations for the junior appointments. Can the Financial Secretary tell us how the Post Office is being recruited now to meet the expanding service, or are we to take it that there is a speeding up, a sweating of labour, going on in the Post Office simultaneously with a reduction in wages?

§ Major ELLIOT
Obviously, we are doing our utmost as good employers to absorb those civil servants from those branches of the Service which are being reduced into those branches which are expanding. The hon. Member would be the first to complain if we rigidly dismissed all those who were surplus in any establishment and then recruited fresh people from outside to deal with an expanding service. As a good employer we must give consideration to those who have been thrown out of work in those branches which are being reduced and get them into those services which are expanding. That is our duty.

§ Mr. MAXTON
You do not take a man from the Foreign Office and put him on the telephone switchboard.

§ Major ELLIOT
A good many Foreign Office messengers are working on the telephone switchboard.