HC Deb 05 April 1910 vol 16 c398W
Mr. NEWMAN

asked the Secretary of State for War, whether he is aware that, under the recent reorganisation of the Army Accounts Department, thirty civilians and forty-four officers of the Army Pay Department, redundant to the revised establishment, are being retained pending absorption; whether the eighteen redundant assistant accountants who entered the Army Accounts Department by the intermediate scheme of open competition are to be dismissed unless they accept transfer to other departments on terms involving loss of seniority, and, in the majority of cases, acceptance of inferior appointments for which they never competed; and whether he will consider the possibility of treating these eighteen men with the consideration extended to other redundants?

Mr. HALDANE

There is no redundancy of officers in the Army Pay Department, though a number of paymasters will be replaced by assistant paymasters in due course. Thirteen of the thirty civilians to are in fact employed in Army Pay Department vacancies for the present. The fact that these supernumeraries exist is scarcely an argument for increasing their number at large expense to the public. It has been decided not to employ in the War Office or Army Accounts Department any men recruited by the intermediate competition and the eighteen redundants referred to are being treated in accordance with the rules prescribed for Civil servants so situated, except that I have been able to obtain for them the special privilege of a period of delay during which they are offered a choice of the appointments of their class which become available in other departments.