Miss Rathboneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of dissatisfaction among married women clerical officers in the Civil Service who, after compulsory retirement on marriage, are re-employed on a temporary basis; that married women retained in the service enjoy the same status, salary, etc., as the unmarried, while those who have rejoined are paid at a lower rate and have no prospect of increments, even where the break in the service has lasted only a few months and where their present duties are similar to, or more skilled than, those they performed before the break; and whether, in view of the importance of encouraging the war-time employment of skilled married women, he will reconsider the matter?
§ Sir K. WoodRepresentations on this point have been made to me by the responsible Staff Associations. Women who retired from their Civil Service posts on marriage, and have been re-employed temporarily during the war, are temporary staff and are, accordingly, appropriately employed at the rates of pay agreed with the staff associations for temporary staff. A special exception is made in the case of those who continue their service without break, but I do not think it would be justifiable to extend this exception further.