§ Mr. BARNESasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the scale of pay of clerks in the Labour Exchanges gives only £60 per year as a starting rate for men who are required to be competent, and that there is a bar at £105 except to those who are specially recommended as qualified for charge; and, having regard to the obligation resting upon the Government to pay their own employés at a rate at least as high as that observed by good employers, will he take the whole matter into consideration with a view to making representations to the Treasury in favour of a rise?
§ Mr. BURNSThe present scale of pay of the clerks in the Labour Exchanges the Unemployment Insurance service is one which was adopted as recently as June, 1912, and the bar at £105 per annum, to which my hon. Friend refers, is an efficiency bar, beyond which all male clerks, certified as being efficient to discharge certain superior duties, are allowed to pass to the maximum of the scale at £150 per annum. The Board of Trade have the power, for the present, 1519W to appoint clerks at commencing salaries in excess of the minimum of £60 by £5 in respect of each two years of age above twenty, up to a commencing salary of £75 per annum (£80 in London). This power has been generally exercised.