RECRUITMENT TO THE CIVIL SERVICE (Hansard, 14 December 1944)

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peake)
As my right hon. Friend opposite observed, we have had a very interesting, but a very non-controversial, Debate on the White Paper on Recruitment to Established Posts in the Civil Service. The object of this Debate was to get the views of hon. Members upon the proposals contained in the White Paper. The proposals are the work, as the House knows, of a Committee of the Civil Service National Whitley Council, representing both the official and the staff sides, and the Report of the Committee is a document agreed by all parties. It is bound, therefore, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) pointed out, to carry very great weight with His Majesty's Government, but of course there would be no point whatever in having this Debate unless we were prepared also to take into account, and to consider, the points made during the Debate on various quarters of the House.
More than one hon. Member has emphasised the great importance of avoiding on this occasion the mistakes made during and after the last war. As a result of the accrued vacancies and, in fact, all the normal vacancies for some years after the last war being filled only from ex-Service sources, we have at the present time a Civil Service with a very bad distribution of age groups, and there is no doubt that the country has to some extent suffered from that fact in recent years. The proposal in the White Paper, therefore, that we should begin, immediately hostilities finish, to fill the accrued vacancies with candidates over a fairly wide range of age and, at the same time, to resume the normal competitions, has I think met with the general approval of the House.
I was asked one or two questions. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) intervened during the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask what would be the position of men who succeeded in examinations prior to the war but who have never taken up their posts owing to having immediately to join the Services. I can give the unqualified assurance that the posts of those men are waiting for them, and there will be no further tests for them to go through. In regard to the speech 1429 of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby—I am afraid on this occasion I did not hear it all—I understand that he warmly approved the Report and had no points of criticism to make.

§ Mr. Peake
That is an unusual position for the hon. Gentleman to find himself in with regard to His Majesty's Government, and I can only say that I wish on this occasion I had had the pleasure of hearing him throughout his speech.
The hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr Geoffrey Hutchinson), I think, was the main critic of the proposals in the White Paper, and he put a number of specific points to me about which I should like to say one or two words. First of all he asked, why did we choose the National Whitley Council as the body to whom this question of post-war recruitment should be submitted for consideration? Well, Sir, Whitleyism in the Civil Service was established, I think, immediately after the end of the last war——

§ Mr. Brown
In 1919.

§ Mr. Peake
—and within the prescribed scope of the Council's work is the question of the general principles governing the conditions of service—recruitment, hours, promotion, discipline, tenure, remuneration and superannuation. Therefore, it is perfectly clear that this was the appropriate body to which this important issue of recruitment should be submitted. My hon. and learned Friend asked that his suggestions on points of detail should be considered, and I have already given an assurance that they will; but, as I have said, we must bear in mind the great weight and authority which attaches to the Report of the Committee. My hon. and learned Friend made a number of detailed suggestions, and asked whether we were tied to the proposals contained in the White Paper. I can only say that his points of criticism and detail will be considered, although I cannot hold out much hope that as a result of their consideration of them the Government will change their mind.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes), whom I am glad to see in his place, asked about the position of temporary civil servants, as did my right hon. Friend opposite. The proposals in regard to the recruitment for estab- 1430 lished posts of persons at present holding temporary appointments in the Civil Service are contained on pages 12, 13 and 14 of the White Paper. I would make it clear that permanent appointment to established posts in the higher grades will be made by selection—that is to say, for the administrative class and for the higher grades of the executive class, those officers who have shown special merit and ability will be individually selected. They will be recommended by the heads of their Departments, and will then be combed out by the Treasury and by the Civil Service Commission. Altogether there will not be many of them, but where a man has shown special aptitude and has rendered valuable service during the war and desires to continue in the Civil Service, and where we think he would be a valuable addition to the Service, he will be given an opportunity in that way. When we come to the clerical grade and the junior executive grade, we reach the grades to which the 15 per cent. of the total accrued vacancies, mentioned in Paragraph 37 of the White Paper, will apply. I hope my right hon. Friend is reassured on the question he put. There may be certain officers in the higher executive grade who are not selected by the heads of their Departments for permanent established posts, but who may desire to make the Civil Service a permanent career. If they want to do that they will have to give up their higher appointments in order to enter for the reconstruction competitions.

§ Mr. Pethick-Lawrence
Then to that extent it appears that my fears are justified.

§ Mr. Peake
It is purely voluntary on their part as to whether they wish to continue permanently in the Civil Service. They are not being put under any disability; they are, in fact, enjoying a measure of preference over the ordinary person outside the Civil Service who has not entered it at all. That is to say, they will come in as part of the number competing for the reserved 15 per cent. of places.
Reference has been made to the method of selection employed during the war by the Service authorities for the commissioned ranks of the Army. This selection has been by War Office selection boards, and in popular parlance is called the 1431 "country house" method of selecting officers. Hon. Members may have heard something about this method, which has taken the place of the interview across the table which lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Candidates are subjected to a test running over three or four days, in fairly comfortable and sociable conditions, in the selection board establishments, which are situated in the countryside. There is a reference in the Report to a possibility of adopting a technique of this kind for selection to the administrative class of the Civil Service. All I can say is that a good deal of adaptation of the War Office method would be required if it were to be adopted for the Civil Service. It appears to have borne valuable results in selection for the commissioned ranks for the Army, and we are examining it carefully to see whether, suitably adapted, it would be a good method for selecting candidates for accrued vacancies in the administrative class of the Civil Service for which the academic qualifications of the candidate could not be expected to be as good as they would have been had he come straight from school or university. As I say, the method is being carefully examined and no doubt in due course a further statement will be made on this subject.
I think I have covered most of the ground. One or two Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward), mentioned the question of preference for ex-Service women as compared with the preference given to ex-Servicemen. We have not given such a high degree of preference to ex-Service women as we propose to give to ex-Servicemen. A fixed proportion of the vacancies will be specifically reserved for ex-Servicemen, and over and beyond that persons who are successful in the examinations may over-lap and also absorb some of the free quota of places. The position is rather different in regard to ex-Service women. I think there is a clear distinction on the ground that they have not been subjected to the same strenuous hardships in campaigns of war as have serving men. Many have remained much nearer home, and have had much better facilities for keeping in contact with ordinary social and political life and continuing their education and studies. Moreover, in considering whether you are to give a high degree of prefer- 1432 ence to ex-Service women you must remember the many other women's organisations which have rendered valuable service in the war, and which are not comprised in the three Services allied to the Navy, Army and Air Force respectively; it would be extremely difficult to draw a line and exclude bodies such as the Women's Land Army, the nursing and other auxiliary organisations, and the like. We have ensured that ex-Service women obtain a number of places proportionate to the number of candidates entering for the Service. If, out of 1,000 candidates, 50 come from the Women's Services, then 1 in 20 of the successful candidates is bound to come from those Services. That is a measure of preference, and I think it is in accordance with the general views of the House that they should have a degree of preference, but not such a high degree as the men who have had to bear the heat and burden of the day, perhaps many thousands of miles from home, under strenuous conditions.

§ Mr. Pethick-Lawrence
Taking the figures the right hon. Gentleman has given, who are the 1,000—all the candidates, or all the men who are not ex-Servicemen, or all the women?

§ Mr. Peake
Leaving out of the picture the Service candidates who are entitled to the fixed reservations, if there are 1,000 candidates left to compete for the remaining vacancies and if 50 of these candidates are drawn from the Women's Services, the number of open places to be allotted to the Women's Services will be one in 20.
I think that by adopting these proposals we are doing something towards building up a really efficient Civil Service for the future. There are many aspects, other than recruitment, in the building up and maintenance of an efficient Civil Service. There is the question of remuneration, and the question of training which was the subject of a Report by my predecessor as Financial Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Assheton). Everything that has been said on these matters during the Debate will be considered. I should like to draw attention to the atmosphere in which this Debate has been conducted, which was very different from that which obtained at the corresponding period of the last 1433 war. Then, civil servants were considered the lowest of the low. They were cartooned and lampooned in the Press, described as Cuthberts, and were continually having white feathers affixed to them by eager and patriotic young women in the streets round Whitehall. For a great many years recruitment to the Civil Service was absolutely barred to anyone who had not served in the Forces. We have had no demand of that sort on this occasion, and I think the reason is, first of all, that this has been a much more total war than the last, but there is, also much greater appreciation in this war of the immensely valuable part which the Civil Service has played. Ministers see a great deal more, I expect, of civil servants than do other-Members, in the ordinary way—certainly we see a great deal more of the higher ranks—and I should not like the Debate to conclude without paying my tribute to the unfailing service, intense industry and unfailing devotion to duty of the higher ranks in the Civil Service, which has played an immense part in carrying our arms so far on the road to victory.