HC Deb 27 November 1981 vol 13 c504W
Sir Patrick Wall

asked the Secretary of State for Defence what are the average hours worked per day in his Department by civil servants and service personnel, respectively.

Mr. Blaker

Because of the wide variation in the task over the whole of the Ministry of Defence, and the differing conditions of service both within the Civil Service and between civil servants and Service men, a comparison of average daily hours worked is not meaningful. Service men are on call 24 hour a day, 7 days a week and their pay recognises this commitment; Ministry of Defence civilians are governed by conditioned hours of work applicable to the Civil Service as a whole but in addition work such overtime as is required, sometimes at weekends. Expressing all these variables as an average per day would be misleading.

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