§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will publish in the Official Report the salaries and expenses as paid to the 1( highest paid employees in his Depart ment and similar details regarding the 10 lowest paid, together with their pension: comparisons.
§ Mr. DeakinsThe following are the annual salaries of the highest paid employees in my Department—the top 16 are given, because, following the four highest salaries there are 12 staff on the same salary:
Permanent secretary (1) £20,772 Second permanent secretaries (2) £19,122 Medical superintendent (1) £18,696 Deputy secretaries (12) £15,629 The 10 lowest paid employees are 16-year-old clerical assistants, who receive £29.68 a week—£1,549.30 a year.
All these employees are entitled to receive expenses which reimburse actual travelling costs incurred on official business. They also receive a fixed rate of subsistence allowance—which is higher for the top grades—to cover hotel and additional costs necessarily incurred when absent on duty from their permanent stations. The total cost of such expenses paid to the 16 highest paid employees in the calendar year ended 31 December 1978 was £3,462.38. Information about expenses paid to the lowest paid employees is not readily available, but the amount would be small because they would seldom be required to be absent on duty from their permanent stations.
Service in all the grades concerned is pensionable under the principal Civil Service pensions scheme. The pensions which the individuals concerned will receive on retirement depend so much on personal factors such as length of service, 27W the final grade reached within the service, the salary received in the final three years of service etc. that it is impossible to make comparisons at this stage. But the rules of the principal Civil Service pensions scheme lay down the same basis for accumulating pension for all the grades concerned, that is a lump sum on retirement equal to 3/80ths X pensionable pay X reckonable service and pension equal to l/80ths X pensionable pay X reckonable service.