§ Mr. Waltersasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will take action to compensate those officers in the National Health Service who worked additional hours between August 1972 and November 1973 to help with the implementation of the NHS reorganisation, especially as they were working outside the normal call of duty and pressing not for extra salary but for payment of work actually done.
§ Dr. OwenI am aware of the dissatisfaction which followed the Pay Board's ruling that the Whitley Council agreements for payment of allowances for additional duties arising from National Health Service reorganisation to the most senior National Health Service officers were not acceptable under stage 2 of the Pay Code. This was a consequence of the policies followed by the last administration. We are moving from statutory controls to voluntary methods, but, as my76W right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment explained in his statement to the House on 6th May—[Vol. 873, c. 29–41]—an essential part of that transition is that there should he no general reopening of old cases.