LORD MONK BRETTONI beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether the opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown on questions relating to the Asylums Officers Superannuation Act, 1909, and submitted to them last Autumn, will be made public during the present Session of Parliament.
LORD HERSCHELLThe effect of the opinions referred to by the noble Lord has already been communicated to the officers and servants and to the local authority concerned in the appeal which led to the Law Officers being consulted, and it is about to be made known in a circular letter to Visiting Committees generally and to other interested persons. Perhaps I may briefly state the conclusions at which the Law Officers have arrived in the matter. They have advised that a dispute as to whether an officer or servant of an asylum is an "established officer or servant" within the meaning of Section 17 (1) of the Act is not a dispute which the Secretary of State has any jurisdiction to determine under Section 15, and apart from any proceedings that may be taken before a Court of Law, no authority except the Visiting Committee of an asylum has any jurisdiction to decide what officers or servants are established; that the list of established officers and servants is made up of (a) such officers or servants employed in a permanent capacity as 806 have the care or charge of patients, together with (b) such other officers or servants as the Visiting Committee in its sole discretion determines by resolution to include; that the division of the officers or servants placed on the list of established officers and servants into two classes is to be made by the Visiting Committee with the consent of the local authority. The local authority's consent is required to the division into classes, but they have no other jurisdiction with regard to the list; and there is no appeal to the Secretary of State in the matter.