HC Deb 16 April 1919 vol 114 cc2905-6W
Mr. CLYNES

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Treasury have refused to grant increments to all Civil servants holding acting appointments over £500 per annum; whether the remuneration for the ordinary responsibilities of these posts is not an incremental scale; on what grounds the refusal is made, seeing that the Treasury have themselves authorised them in the case of appointments under £500; what was the date of the first application for these increments; and whether he will now give an undertaking that this claim shall be conceded without delay as from the date of the first application?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The normal Civil Service practice is to grant an allowance to an officer temporarily acting in a post higher than his substantive post. Officers in receipt of such allowances continue to receive increments on their substantive scale. In certain Departments, during the War, officers acting in higher posts than their substantive posts have been allowed the minimum of the scale of the acting post, and as a special concession where that minimum does not exceed £350 per annum increments in the acting scale have been granted. Regard being had to the normal practice above referred to (which has been in operation throughout the War in many Departments), it was not considered justifiable to extend the special concession named in the last paragraph to officers acting in posts the minimum of which exceeded £350 per annum, as such treatment would have placed the officers in question in a. much more favourable position than officers in receipt of allowances under the normal arrangements.