§ Mr. Woodhouseasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will direct the Civil Service Commission to reverse its decision to advance, without prior notice, the date of closure for entries to the Civil Service examination.
§ Mr. David HowellNo. It is a matter for the Commissioners to decide.
Recruitment in the new competition for appointments in administration this year has been so good that by early April ample applications had been received to fill all available vacancies. If later applicants had been allowed and some of them had proved to be better than some of those who had already been selected, the latter would have had to have their offers of appointment withdrawn. The Commissioners considered that this would have been a serious breach of faith. They decided that the fairer course would be not to accept any further applications for this year's competition.