§ Mr. AMMONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the statement on page 156a of the current Navy Estimates, that the scales of salaries and allowances at the Admiralty are fixed by the Treasury, he is aware that, according to page 171 of the same publication, the Deputy-Director of Dockyards, who is a civil servant, is paid a salary less by approximately £600 per annum than that of the Assistant Director, who is a naval officer; whether the grade of Deputy-Director is superior to that of Assistant Director; whether this anomalous state of affairs, whereby the junior official receives a remuneration greatly in excess of that paid to his senior, is due to the much larger increases over pre-War rates of pay which naval officers have received as compared with civil servants: and, if not, to what cause is it to be attributed?
§ Commander EYRES - MONSELLI have been asked to reply. The appointment of Assistant Director of Dockyards is at present held by an engineer rear-admiral, whose emoluments exceed by, approximately, £600 a year the salary payable to the Deputy Director, who ranks as superior to the Assistant Director for administrative purposes. It is the fact, as the hon. Member suggests, that the average increase over pre-War rates payable at present to naval officers is in excess of the average increase payable in the case of the administrative and clerical Civil Service. In the present instance, however, the primary explanation of the apparent discrepancy lies in the fact that naval officers employed at the Admiralty are paid on the basis of the emoluments appropriate to their naval rank rather than salaries fixed solely on the basis of the importance and responsibility of their posts: and the comparison would, therefore, vary according as the naval engineer officer appointed as Assistant Director of Dockyards happened to V of rear-admiral's or lower rank.