23 March 1922]

normal level of work is reached, before adding to the numbers of permanent staff." The only question I want to ask you is, are you going to carry that recommendation out and make no more appointments from the temporary staff to the permanent staff, and that you have made none since this Committee issued its Report?-What I think the Geddes Commitee meant in spirit was that I should always keep enough temporary men in hand to meet any reduction in my activities as a result of the shrinkage of Government Departments.

52. It would be that you should need less permanent people then, would it not? As you reduce the amount of work that passes through your Department, you would need fewer people to deal with it? -Yes, but if I had temporary people, I could get rid of those more easily.

53. That is why it says that if you are going to reduce the amount of work passing through the Stationery Office, you should not have any more permanent officials than you have now, and you should not add to that list, and if you need any further help, you should have temporary help. I know there is some other reference here that there were constant additions being made to the staff at least, that was the impression I got from reading it-that you would be appointing these temporary people to be ermanent people, or that was your intention. Naturally I can see what you are up against. You get boys there who have been there for some time as temporary employees, and the work is more or less fixed, and they want to be on the permanent list? They have to qualify through the Civil Service Commission. It is not within my power to put anybody on the permanent list; and f they qualify through the Civil Service Commission, it is not by any means sure that they will come to my Department.

54. But they could not put them in your Department if you did not want them, could they?-No.

55. But really the point is that you will not take on any more permanent staff from the Department which recommends them to you, until the whole matter is reviewed some time later on as to what the cost of your Department is now? Yes.

Mr. Bowerman.] As the figures stand here, the permanent staff has been materially increased and the temporary staff materially decreased.

Chairman.

[Continued

56. The Committee want that stopped. They do not want any more permanent men? As vacancies occur in the temporary staff they are filled up by Civil Service men on the permanent staff.

57. But they must not be, if this Report is adopted. We are only trying to find out here and that is the object that I at least have, and I think it is the wish of the other Members of the Committee whether in this particular Department, which affects this Committee, you are going to carry out the recommendations of the Committee. If you say: "No, I cannot carry them out," then we have to see some way by which, in our wisdom, you ought to be checked to the point of seeing that you do carry them out?-I do not know if I have made this quite clear to the Committee. What I had in view was, not to make more permanent appointments than I am quite sure I shall have a residuum of work to employ after all the cuts are made. A transfer of a few temporary posts into permanent posts, or the transformation of the occupants of certain posts from a temporary to a permanent basis, would not cut across this recommendation, because I have 60 many temporary men in hand that I have a very big margin.

58. But you have more permanent people than you need, have you not, on this decided reduction ?-No, I have been reducing the staff steadily ever since the Armistice.

59. Is that shown here-permanent staff being reduced?—There is nothing there to show what the figures were at the end of the war and since.

60. I think the Committee might have a list showing how many were the permanent staff at the end of the war, and how many have been reduced in 1919, 1920, and 1921?-Yes.*

61. And how many you have added to your staff during that period?-Permanent and temporary?

62. Yes; how many you have got rid of in a year, and how many you have added in a year. In order to get a clear understanding of it myself: supposing that you had got in one Department of the Stationery Office a number of permanent officials, clerks, chief clerks, stenographers, and all sorts of people, and the Government in its economy campaign, cuts down supplies passing through that department so that there is not a sufficient amount of work for all those people

*See Q. 171.

23 March 1922]

[Continued

to do, can you remove those people?

Oh, yes.

63. Where do they go? I am now talking of permanent staff?-If I have not got work for them in my own Department I can return them to the Civil Service Commission.

64. Do you ever do that?—Yes.

65. Many?-Not of late, of course, because I should get rid of temporary people and keep my permanent people. It is easier to get rid of temporary staff than it is to get rid of permanent staff in the public service.

66. And it is absolutely essential for you to keep a large number of temporary staff?-At the present moment, yes.

67. Mr. Bowerman raised the point that you were increasing the permanent staff and decreasing the other staff, and my opinion is that you ought to be increasing your temporary staff and decreasing your permanent staff because of the ease with which you can get rid of the temporary as against the permanent employee. Suppose you have five employees that you do not think it wise to keep because of the amount of work, will they take them out at once or will they keep them there for months before they move them? If they cannot find another place for them I suppose they have to remain there if they are permanent employees; you cannot get them out of your Department into another before they have found room for them somewhere else, can you?-I can. I simply give notice to the Civil Service Commission that on and after such and such a date I no longer require the serrices of (say) Mr. John Jones.

68. And he ceases from that date?He ceases so far as I am concerned. He goes on the Civil Service Commissioners' list and they put him somewhere else.

69. Supposing they cannot take him on anywhere else, what happens to him?-I do not know what the Civil Service Commissioners do with him. They probably put him on the waiting list.

70. How do they base their wages?-I think they drop them until they get another appointment.

Mr. Bowerman.

71. It is news to me to know that a permanent official can be got rid of and placed on a waiting list and that there is no salary coming in.-I think, if I may make the suggestion, you had better call somebody from the Civil Service Commission to explain this.

36453

Chairman.

72. What I am trying to get at is this -and it only relates to the Department with which the we are concerned, Stationery Office: If these cuts are made and this Department's work is reduced in quantity, necessarily it does not take as large a staff; or is the Controller of the Stationery Office in the unfortunate position of having to retain people on his staff? I suppose the Committee may take it that if you can reduce your staff you will do so? I do not see any particular recommendation here about reducing your staff?-I think on page 112 you will find something bearing on that, which shows a reduction in the volume of work does not necessarily mean a reduction of staff.

73. Why? Because if you are restricting output within the smallest possible compass it may take more effort relatively to do that than if you supply everything that you are asked for.

cern.

74. That is a new theory?-It is not a new theory so far as I am concerned. 75. It is a new theory in business?-My activities are not like a commercial conA commercial concern is concerned with pushing its wares as far as it can. I am concerned with restricting my output as much as I can, and if I get a demand to supply certain things and the orders are simply made out and the whole thing goes through the routine, and they are supplied, it does not cause so much staff work as if I immediately begin to open the question with the Department and go into it and find out why they want them and whether they cannot do without them.

the 76. Therefore less work the Stationery Office had from Government Departments, the more it would cost the State, because of the overhead charges going on all the time, with no production? The more, relatively, it would cost to the total amount spent.

77. Therefore you could reach a point in the Stationery Office where printing done for Government Departments would be much higher than you could obtain it for in any part of the open market, owing to the very lack of supplies. Because you have to charge up the cost of your overhead charges to your jobs, have you not? Not of administration. That goes down separately under a separate subhead: salaries and wages.

78. Surely if you get an order from a Department, an order for printing that they require under their Vote, you esti

A 4

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mate what that job is going to cost the Stationery Office to do, or that Department, do you not?-Yes.

79. As a matter of form, even though it is not a matter of profit?—Yes.

80. And included in the charge must necessarily be your overhead charges ?Are you asking now about printing done in the Government printing works or printing done generally for the public service?

81. Whatever it is, as long as it is done by the Stationery Office in their own works? But I only charge there the actual cost of the works, not the whole cost of the Stationery Office.

82. May we take it that that means that if you gave out all your work to printers and you added afterwards the cost of operating the Stationery Office to order that work, the printing would cost more than if the Department themselves ordered it from outside printers?-It would cost exactly the same, as far as that is concerned.

a

big

83. Why? You are running establishment to issue orders?-The orders have to be given to my own printing works, just as if they were an outside contractor.

84. I am talking of outside printing works now. The position is this, that where the Stationery Office estimates for a printing job it only puts in the overhead charges of its printing department in making estimates, and not of its administrative department. When a printer gives an estimate to the Stationery Office he has to include in his estimate administration as well as every other charge in arriving at his price. Therefore the point is that if all printing were ordered at competitive prices from a Department to the printer, not through you at all, but just through the ordinary Establishment Officer of the Ministry, if he asked for 100,000 circulars or booklets or printing of any kind, he would be able to buy cheaper than if it was ordered through the Stationery Office, and they placed his orders outside?-I should say decidedly not.

85. Why? You have got all the great overhead charges of this vast organisation doing nothing but placing orders for printing and paying the money?— If you had every Establishment Officer in every Department competing with one another in placing orders I should say your total cost of printing and stationery for the public service would be quadrupled, or more perhaps. In the Stationery Office you have a central buying

[Continued

establishment; in the other you have every establishment competing with one another in the open market.

86. Where is your saving? Salaries and wages: Do you save anything on those in this estimated saving of your Department under the Geddes recommendations?-I have not got the details for the £150,000. I have only got them for the £100,000 that I knocked off myself.

87. You say: "I am saving roughly a little more than the Geddes Committee recommend I should save on this year's estimates "?—Yes.

88. Salary and wages: How much is that of that £427,000 ?-I do not think there will be any there probably, because I shall have to screw Departments up to such an extent that I shall want quite as much staff with the reduced amount of cost.

89. That is what I really cannot understand? I get a demand to supply certain things. Instead of just supplying them, the branch dealing with that has to open up correspondence with the Department. It takes the clerk perhaps three or four hours to deal with that demand, whereas if he simply pushed it through and supplied without question he would get rid of it in ten minutes. If you multiply that all up in terms of clerks you will find that to screw down demands it is going to take much more time relatively.

90. If every Department took that stand, and, as a result, you were asked whether on your supply to a particular Department you could save money, then you would say: 'No, it costs us more now than before the Geddes Committee's recommendations came in." If you are going to operate a Department for many hundreds of thousands of pounds less than you did before, certainly you ought not to need as many people for it?—No, I do not say I do; but I do not say that I could reduce staff exactly in the same proportion.

91. But you have not reduced them at all. You say: "I do not think I can save any money on salaries or wages," and I feel that that needs explanation for your own sake as a matter of business management of the business which is reducing its amount of work?-I was asked how much of that £427,000 is salaries and wages. I cannot say offhand. I have not the figures with me.

92. Probably it would save time if we took it in this way. We have here an Appendix. Stationery and printing:

23 March 1922]

Salaries, wages, carriage and transit, incidentals, printing paper, binding, &c., books and maps, machinery, and so on. Could you give us a list showing where this £427,000 comes in, in that?-Yes, I can give you that.

93. Will you give us that next Thursday? I can give it to you for the £100,000 now; I will give it to you for the £150,000 next Thursday.

94. I want it for the whole £427,000 or more, as you say. What I am really getting at is this. Are such establishment charges going to be less as a result of these recommendations, and if not, why not?-Yes, they will be, but I do not think they will be less in the same proportion.

95. I do not mind what proportion if we could only get the figures. Will you give us that next Thursday?—Yes.*

Mr. Bowerman.

96. Upon this question of overhead charges, may we take it that the Stationery Office is in precisely the same position as an ordinary printing contractor: that it has to account for its establishment charges as far as this Office is concerned and all other charges pertaining to a printing office? Is there any difference between a State printing office and a private contractor in regard to that? None at all, except that there are no directors' fees.

Chairman.

97. But a moment ago you said: 66 Of course, I do not include the cost of running the Stationery Office in an estimate from the printing department of the Stationery Office."--Why should I?

98. You have just told Mr. Bowerman : If I am John Brown and Sons, printers, I include all my establishment charges in giving my estimates for printing?— For the works, but not for running the whole of the business of the Stationery Office.

Chairman.] I have always felt that this is a great disadvantage to the printing trade, because it must be possible under those circumstances that the State is paying high for its printing where it is not disclosed.

Mr. Bowerman.] I am not attempting to discuss the various merits of a State printing office as against a private contractor's office. I am only asking, for information, whether any difference is made so far as the apportionment of

* See Q. 231.

[Continued

overhead charges is concerned, as between a State printing office and a private printing office.

Witness.] None at all.

Chairman.

99. But there must be?-Not at all. 100. Then what proportion of the establishment charges of the Stationery as opposed to the printing department of the Stationery Office is included in your estimates for printing. Do you deal with it? Surely all the people there have something to do with the printing order? -The cost of the printing is charged to the sub-head Printing. It does not include anything for salaries and wages. That is another sub-head of the Vote.

101. That is the real point; but it is not in a private business. That is the point I am trying to get Mr. Bowerman to see.

Mr. Bowerman.

102. Take the question of capital charges: factory, lighting, heating, superintending and that kind of thing; all those charges, I take it, are accounted for and apportioned in the cost of the work? That is so, they are; but you would not charge the cost of running the Great Eastern Railway Company as part of the overhead charges of their printing establishment.

Chairman.

103. No, but everything in Waterlow's establishment from start to finish, from the Chairman of the Company down to the boy who delivers the parcel, and the wrapping paper, is included in their printing estimate?-But they are only printers. They are exactly the same as my printing works without the rest of the Stationery Office.

104. Do you make out a proper estimate of a printing job in exactly the same way as a printing office does ?-Certainly.

105. Can we have one of those?-Certainly.

106. I should like to see one. Will you bring it next Thursday?-Certainly.

107. Because I personally feel that under those circumstances as explained by you it ought to be cheaper, on the face of it, to buy stationery from the Stationery Office for a Government Department, but in fact it is much higher, because it is accounted for in another way, and it is all printing?--I do not agree. The Stationery Office would run

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

[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 de-crease? 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.

Mr. Hugh Edwards.

Really as a matter of fact your organisation is a most autocratic one, is it not? You do what you like, whatever the cost is? I have spoken to other Members about it, and that is why the Members do not attend this Committee.