30 March 1922]

Chairman.

167. Do I understand correctly that if we have an annual Register, it will save £99,000?-Yes.

168. And there is no other way of saving chat £99,000?—No.

169. The position is this, as I understand it: that if this new method is adopted, it would save £76,000, and we would get a satisfactory Register, and that can be done without legislation?So I understand.

170. Can you put it into effect, or who puts it into effect?-The Home Office would put it into effect.

171. Then I think we had better drop this matter now, and ask about it at the next meeting. I should think that the general opinion of the Committee would be to save the £76,000 and give corrections in the spring of each year. The next point was a table of the staff,* showing the number of permanent and temporary employees. What are they ?On the 1st April, 1919-that is the beginning of the first financial year after the Armistice the number of the administrative and clerical staff was 810. That con

sisted of 115 permanent and 695 temporary. On the 1st April, 1920, there were 159 permanent and 595 temporary. On the 1st April, 1921, there were 234 permanent and 518 temporary. On the 1st April, 1922, the total is 711, and the numbers, 340 permanent and 371 temporary.

172. When was the Geddes Report on your Department issued?-Some time in February, I think.

173. Some time previous to that, you had been before them, had you not?-Yes, but these figures were estimated figures given to them as to what would happen on the 1st April.

174. There has been a steady rise in the number of permanent employees, and over 100 during one year?-Yes.

175. How many of those were since January, 1922?—I am afraid I could not tell you that, offhand.

176. Why did you make so many permanent employees in the last year?-I have got an approved establishment by the Treasury, of permanent posts, to be filled by permanent staff eventually.

177. Irrespective of the question of economy?-If it is possible to dispense with any of those, as time goes on, the staff will be reduced.

* See Q. 60.

[Continued

178. Then may I ask you why, in April, 1919, you were able to get on with 115 permanent people, and to-day you need 340 permanent people to do less work; because you are reducing your estimates this year by a couple of million poundsI have not got the exact figures, but a very large sum-and yet you need nearly three times the permanent staff to do it? -I do not think it is quite fair to compare only permanent staff. Staff is staff, whether it is permanent or temporary.

179. But if you did not need permanent people in 1919, it would be much more difficult, I should think, to get rid of permanent people than it is to get rid of

temporary people, in reduction of staff; therefore, when you are in every way reducing the cost of running your Department, and you yourself admit you have brought it down by very big figures this year, why do you need so many more permanent people instead of temporary ones, who are so much more easy to get rid of? I do not know that it entirely depends with me whether I employ permanent or temporary people. Speaking offhand, I do not think there is any provision in the arrangements of the Civil Service to employ in future temporary clerks; and as the present temporary staff disappears, they must be replaced by permanent staff or not at all.

180. Therefore there is a ruling somewhere which governs you, that gives you a feeling that you must get rid of temporary employees and have permanent ones in their place, in so far as you think it is necessary to have employees at all in your Department? If I lost 20 temporary clerks to-morrow, and I had to engage 20 more people to take their places, I believe the Civil Service Commission would send me permanent Civil Servants to fill up those gaps.

181. Is it an advantage now, in the conduct of your Department, or a disadvantage, from the point of view of efficiency or inefficiency, and of clearing them out if they are not competent, to have them permanent or temporary?— My experience is that in the long run it is a great advantage from the point of view of efficiency to have permanent people.

Mr. Bowerman.] Following on what you said with regard to your application to the Civil Service authorities for replacing temporary men, and that they send you an equivalent number of permanent staff apparently, would you have the same power to dismiss the permanent staff as

30 March 1922]

you would to dismiss the temporary staff?

Chairman.

182. If they were not satisfactory; if you do not want them?-Yes. I should simply notify the Civil Service Commission that on such and such a date I should not require the services of such and such people.

Mr. Bowerman.

183. The fact of their being permanent hands does not necessitate their retention if there is nothing particular for them to do?-No; the Civil Service Commission would take them back and reassign them to some other Departments where they had vacancies.

Chairman.

184. From your knowledge of the Civil Service Commission, is it usual for them to lessen the cost of payment of Civil Servants by getting rid altogether of temporary people or of permanent ones? -As I understood from you the other day, if you do not want employees, instead of them being thrown out in the cold they go back to the Civil Service Commissioners, and in the meantime they are paid?—No, I understand they are not paid when they are not assigned to any Department.

185. Either permanent or temporary? -No.

Mr. Bowerman.

[Continued

190. A man may have been employed as a temporary hand for a quarter of a century and he remains in temporary employment?—Yes.

191. Although he may have been in continuous employment for 25 years?Yes.

Chairman.

192. Can you tell me what percentage of the 225 addition to your permanent staff from 1919 to 1922 were appointed to permanent positions, as opposed to those where you had got rid of temporary people, and then needed staff again, and the Commissioners supplied you with permanent members of your staff, as you have just indicated in your answers? What is the difference? You had 225 more permanent staff. Did you appoint those from temporary to permanent or did the Commission give you those extra men ?— To begin with, some of those men were men who returned from the war; they were permanent Civil Servants who were not in the 115 because they were at the war, and when the war ceased they came back. I do not know what that number was, but it was something considerable.

193. That was in 1919?-It would be after the 1st April, 1919, probably, and it would be before the 1st April, 1922. In regard to the others, they would be vacancies which occurred through temporary men leaving from one cause or another, and their places being filled up by the Civil Service Commission with permanent Civil Servants.

194. You have the power to change a man from temporary to permanent employment in your Department, have you not?-No.

195. You cannot do that?-No.

196. Therefore the whole blame, if any, in regard to having to-day 340 permanent officials as opposed to 115 in 1919 would be a matter for the Civil Service Commissioners or the Treasury?—Yes; and before the war, of course, temporary clerks in Civil Service Departments like my own were practically unknown.

Sir Cecil Beck..

197. In 1922 you have practically halfand-half permanent and temporary. You do not know the proportions in 1914, do you, between permanent and temporary? In 1919 one in six was permanent; in 1922 they are about half-and-half ?-No, I could not give you the number in the same way.

201. But generally it is not done?--Generally it is not done.

202. And therefore if you had among those 518 people that you had in 1921, 25 exceptionally competent people who could do their work better than anyone else in the Department, you could not promote them to a permanent place or practically do anything for them, and you might get substituted for them incompetent people? That is rather an extreme way of putting it.

203. No; it is a rule of business. Among all those temporary people probably you would get some very competent people whom you would like to keep and to raise in position to more important work or to retain them on that work?-As a matter of fact, the Establishments Division of the Treasury lay down certain rules for dealing with these temporary clerks.

204. Is efficiency one of them?-There is a competitive examination, and those who are successful pass, and those who do not are still temporary clerks until they are replaced by permanent clerks.

205. It would seem to me that as you have that enormous number of people working there as temporaries, they must give more or less satisfaction, and it would seem to me that it would be far better and more economical from the point of view of efficiency to retain those people who had been trained in the work as temporaries than to receive permanent employees in their place, who had had no experience in the Department. Some of these people must have three or four

five years' experience there?—Yes. It

[Continued

is a complicated question. Might I suggest that this is a general question affecting the whole of the public service, and if the Committee would like to go deeply into this question, might I suggest that you should ask somebody from the Establishments Division of the Treasury to come and give evidence on the question as a general question?

Sir Cecil Beck.

206. Are these people we are talking about all men, or are they men and women?-Mostly men.

Chairman.

207. Have you any Women except stenographers?-A few.

208. Why? There are permanent women Civil Servants now; they are recognised as a class.

Mr. Bowerman.] Do we understand that as between 1921 and 1922, when 106 permanent officials were appointed, they were not appointed on the suggestion or on the recommendation of the Controller? Chairman.] That is what under

stand.

we

209. Is that helpful or a hindrance to you the fact that these are assigned to you rather than you choosing them?No head of a Department has any choice in selecting permanent Civil Servants for his own Department. He simply writes to the Civil Service Commission and says: "I have so many vacancies for such-and-such a class," and they send along people from the examination list that they have got in hand.

210. You would consider your department a semi-technical one, would you not. as it deals with printing?-Yes; I have a separate class of technical clerks for that.

211. Do you appoint those or do they find them for you?-They find them for Technical examinations are held by the Civil Service Commissioners.

me.

212. Is there any employee in your Office at all who is not a Civil Servant? -I do not quite follow. All employees in my Office are Civil Servants.

213. For instance, there are certain skilled men in the printing trade, who are recognised as being extremely competent in the way of working out estimates or planning, or dealing with printing scientifically, from years of study. You could not employ any people of that sort at all, could you, unless they had passed a Civil Service examination?— No, they pass a special technical Civil

30 March 1922]

Service examination for the Stationery Office.

214. Have you had any of those?—Yes. Under normal circumstances all my technical staff are recruited in that

manner.

215. That is, where you wanted someone of a certain competency, you have asked them to qualify for the position? -Yes; I advertise that on a certain date an examination will be held by the Civil Service Commissioners for the post of such and such in the Stationery Office and that certain qualifications are necessary for them to receive nomination for the examination.

216. Then is the salary they are paid relatively the same as that paid for what, for the sake of argument, we call unskilled work on the Office side of a printing establishment?—It is special class altogether:

a

[Continued

any experience whatever, and therefore you lose an efficient staff practically altogether unless you re-employ them as temporaries when you get them back again? -No, I do not obtain my temporary clerks now. All temporary clerks for some time have been obtained from the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. Bowerman.

225. May we take it that you have had to employ ex-service men, which involves the discharge or displacement of a certain number of temporary men?—Yes. 226. That may be the explanation?A partial explanation.

Sir Cecil Beck.

227. Do you ever have rush periods in your printing-a sudden rush of printing, and are you entitled then to employ a few really temporary people just for a short time?-A short, sharp rush of that kind would be dealt with by overtime.

Chairman.

228. Or you usually put a job of that kind out? So far as my own Department is concerned, it would be done by overtime.

229. You are organised to deal with rushes, are you not, with only 115 people less than you had in 1919, and you have so much less work to do?-On the whole, perhaps I have more work to do than I had in 1919, but any sudden rush calling for a big, sudden extra output on the part of the Department itself would be met by overtime. You could not train a staff to deal with that in the time. 230. You determine that point?-Yes. As a matter of fact, I may say that there has not been any overtime of this sort now for a long time.

231. The next point, I think, also touches on this one. You were going to give us a statement* showing the total reduction of £427,502 distributed amongst the various sub-heads of the Vote? This explanation, I am afraid, will be rather complicated, because so many sets of figures have been given in connection with my estimates for next

year.

232. Can we take it generally: Have there been any reductions in salaries and wages? I think I can deal with the whole question and show the whole of the figures. The provisional estimate, War Liquidation Departments excepted, for the Stationery Office, given in July, 1921, for 1922-23, for the purposes of

* See Q. 95.

23 March 1922]

just the same if all the printing work were done by contract. I should want exactly the same staff in the Stationery Office itself and the fact that some of it is done in its own printing works does not affect that headquarters staff the least bit one way or the other.

108. You are really a middleman so far as the Stationery Office is concerned? -Exactly,

Viscount Ednam.

109. I am not quite clear about this. The printing that is done by a Department is charged up to the Department, is it? Yes, it is charged up to my Department.

110. But I mean to the Department ordering it. For instance, this new paper that the Ministry of Labour is bringing out, the "Labour Gazette, of which we are all sent free copies, is that printed by you and charged up to the Ministry of Labour?-It is shown against them at the end of the year. The whole of the expenditure of my Department is spread over the various services that I supply: but there is no money transaction. They do not pay for it; it is all charged to my Vote.

Chairman.

111. Do they know what it costs?—Yes, they can if they want to.

112. Do they get an estimate for it?-They can do so if they want to.

113. But do you insist on them having an estimate?—No. I do not supply Departments with the itemised cost of everything they get from me.

114. Therefore if they order the "Labour Gazette " and they tell you that they want 30,000 or 40,000 or 100,000 or 200,000 copies you proceed to print those for them? No, I do not. I want to know why they want so many, first, of all.

115. If they satisfy you that they want that number, do you tell them that it is going to cost £2,000 a month, or whatever it may be, or do you proceed to print them? If it were a new thing

116. This particular case was?—If that were a new thing, I should say: "No, you must first get Treasury authority for that." Then they would apply to the Treasury for authority for the Sta tionery Office to supply them with these. 117. With so many copies?-Whatever they wanted.

[Continued

118. At so much? The Treasury would refer that application to me for me to report upon, and I should give the Treasury full information as to the cost and everything else with regard to it.

Mr. Hugh Edwards.

119. Does it rest with you as to whether a publication shall be issued or not? Have you the last word?-No.

120. Who has it?-The Treasury; but in the first place I decide that I will not issue it without Treasury authority, and I tell the Department to go to the Treasury to get authority.

121. If the Treasury has given its authority do you submit a report of the number of copies printed each month? Do you submit to anybody a report whether there is an increase or a decrease? The Treasury in that case would. probably authorise so many copies per month.

Chairman.

122. Did they in this instance?-I do not remember the particulars off-hand.

Viscount Ednam.

123. Perhaps it is done by private contract, but it is a new departure. We all had a printed form from the Ministry of Labour asking: "Do you require a free copy every month of this new publication "?-What is the name of it?

124. The "Labour Gazette "?-That is not a new publication. It is a very old publication.

125. It is only just now that they have started free copies, I think. It has not been supplied free before? I will look into that. I did not know that hon. Members were getting it free.

126. It is very convenient, but I was wondering on whose authority it was, and who stood the cost of publication. The cost of publication comes out of your Vote? Yes, for the "Labour Gazette." certainly.

127. I will not take that particular instance, but in such a case as that?Yes.