HC Deb 27 July 1943 vol 391 cc1375-6
33. Captain Cobb

asked the Secretary of State for War the pensions and other emoluments received on retirement by civil servants employed at the War Office and how they compare with those received by Regular officers and other ranks of equivalent grades?

Sir J. Grigg

Owing to the differing conditions of service and ages of retirement and the absence of any precise equivalence between the various grades in the Civil Service and the various Army ranks, I regret that a valid comparison cannot be drawn between the pensions drawns by civil servants and those drawn by military officers and other ranks.

43. Mr. William Brown

asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the Report of the Cozens-Hardy Committee on staffing of mixed military and civilian establishments of the War Department?

Sir J. Grigg

As the answer is rather long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

The recommendations of the Cozens-Hardy Committee have now been considered by the War Office and have been generally approved. The Committee's Report is, as I have said before, a departmental Report, and will not be published, but I am glad to have this opportunity of informing the House of the main conclusion reached by the Committee.

The Committee recommended the principles which should govern the fixing of the establishments of War Department outstations. Broadly this involves the posting of military and A.T.S. officers and other ranks in sufficient numbers to provide for the general military control and direction of the establishments, to ensure adequate mobility and flexibility of the staff and to provide for the efficient training of military personnel for service overseas, and the filling of the balance of the establishments by civilians. These principles will have to be worked out in detail for each outstation and this is being put in hand.

The application of these principles which are an extension of existing practice, while they will ensure that there is an adequate military complement, will result in the replacement of a considerable number of military personnel by civilians, if suitable civilians are available. How far they will be, experience will show, but it will only be in default of suitable civilians that military and A.T.S. personnel will be employed in the civilian complement of the establishments.

In this connection, steps will be taken to discover and make full use of all available talent in the existing civilian staff. I take this opportunity of voicing my appreciation of the loyal and devoted service rendered throughout the war in the various War Department outstation establishments by that staff, both men and women, whose work has been of vital importance to the Army in the field, and of expressing my hope that there will be found among them a good number who are fitted for posts of greater responsibility than they now hold. I should also like to pay a tribute to the military and A.T.S. staff of these outstations who have carried out their work in the face of many difficulties.

In order to make the fullest possible use of our man-power it is proposed to employ suitable A.T.S. officers where possible in place of military officers in the posts which under the Committee's proposals require to be filled by military. These A.T.S. officers will be carefully selected and in as much as their work will bring them into touch with and place them in charge of civilians as well as soldiers, steps will be taken to see that they are made acquainted with the place and functions of Whitley Councils in the Civil Service.

I hope that the measures outlined above will result in the best use being made of our man- and woman-power in these establishments.