§ Mr. McEnteeasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the Prison Officers' Representative Board accepted the recent new scales of pay under a misapprehension; that many of the representatives informed their staffs by telegram that they would receive immediate increases of pay, to the effect that the officers would be placed on their maximum rates of pay without any restriction; and what regulations there are, if any, which prevent officers receiving their maximum rates of pay in any new scale introduced?
§ Sir J. SimonThe Representative Board could not have been under any misapprehension on this point. When the Prison Commissioners met the Emergency Committee of the Board in December, 1935, it was explained verbally that in accordance with the usual Civil Service practice serving officers would be assimilated to the new scale, either at the new minimum or at the level of their existing rate of pay, whichever was higher; and by arrangement with the Committee the Commissioners circulated to all establishments a written statement clearly setting out the position. It was after this statement had been circulated, and after the Emergency Committee had consulted the prison officers that the Committee again met the Commissioners in January, 1936, and accepted the new scales. There are no regulations which prevent an officer attaining, by annual increments, the maximum of the new scale.