HC Deb 28 March 1980 vol 981 cc713-4W
Mr. Wheeler

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons employed by local and central Government in the magistrates' courts service in England and Wales are above executive officer level and how many are below clerical officer level.

Mr. Brittan

Magistrates' courts in England and Wales are a locally run service which is administered by magistrates' courts committees and, in inner London, by the Committee of Magistrates. Justices' clerks are appointed and their assistants employed by those committees. The staff are, therefore, neither civil servants nor local government officers and they are not generally organised in grades that are equivalent to those in the Civil Service. I am advised, however, that after the first stage of the Civil Service pay settlement of 1 April 1979 and of the magistrates' courts pay settlements of 1 July 1979 there were about 2,100 full-time and 25 part-time justices' clerks and assistants with salaries above the then maximum for Civil Service executive officer grade—£5,043—and about 250 full-time and three part-time justices' clerks' assistants aged 18 and over with salaries below the then minimum for a Civil Service clerical officer aged 18£2,420.