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to $6,000 per annum. We have recommended a higher entry point into the technical officers' scale for station officers than for Police sub-inspectors grade I, since we consider that higher qualifications and longer experience are required. We have raised the grading of the Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade whose present salary appears to us to be low in relation to his responsibilities.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS DEPARTMENT
104. We have recommended for the staff of the Imports and Exports Department scales similar to those for the Police Force. In the lower ranks this involves the grading of Chinese revenue officers with Police constables and of senior Chinese revenue officers with Police corporals. On entry there should be an initial training period of one year as a recruit. In place of special grade revenue officers we recommend the recruitment of assistant revenue officers on a scale similar to that for sub-inspectors, grade II. For this grade, candidates should have the same qualifications as candidates for Police sub-inspectorships. If it is not possible to absorb the present special grade revenue officers into this new grade, we suggest that serving officers should be given the same salaries as police sergeants and that no further recruitment to the special grade should take place. For revenue officers we recommend the same scale as for Police sub-inspectors grade I but consider that after passing an efficiency bar between $7,200 per annum and $7,680 per annum, they should proceed on the scale to $9,600. From this point promotion to senior revenue officer on the scale $10,080 per annum to $12,480 per annum should be dependent upon vacancies. We understand that the salary scale of the Chief Preventive Officer was specially designed for a previous holder of this post and we recommend that in future the Chief Preventive Officer should receive the same rates of pay as a Chief Inspector of Police. For the Government Chemist (Monopoly) and the Assistant Government Chemist (Monopoly), we favour the same scales as for the Government Chemist and Assistant Government Chemist in the Medical Department.
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
105. We recommend a ten year scale for assistant medical officers who will be expected on first appointment to have had at least two years experience as a houseman in a Government Hospital or to have served an apprenticeship under a private practitioner of the kind that is recommended in the Spens Report on the Remuneration of General Practitioners. An efficiency bar will operate between the grades of assistant medical officer and medical officer. Direct entrants to the grade of medical officers will be expected to have obtained additional qualifications or to have had experience of special value.
We propose that assistant medical officers who have obtained such additional qualifications or have had experience of special value and who show outstanding ability should be promoted to the medical officer grade before reaching the maximum of the assistant medical officer grade. We recommend an efficiency bar on the scale for medical officers between $17,040 per annum and $17,760 per annum. propose that there should be similar arrangements for women assistant medical officers and for women medical officers and have recommended for women doctors 80% of the scale applicable to male doctors. We are of the opinion that the number of specialist appointments should be increased.
We
106. We consider that the nursing service in Hong Kong has in the past been seriously underpaid and we recommend substantial increases.
We propose a four year training period for probationer nurses, and a two year period for probationer midwives. On qualifying a locally trained nurse would become a staff nurse on an eleven year scale. She would then be eligible for promotion by selection either to the grade of nursing sister or to the grade of health sister. Health sisters would have no further avenue of promotion, but nursing sisters would be eligible for promotion to the grade of senior nursing sister as vacancies occur. In this connexion we recommend that the present practice of making a nursing sister a senior nursing sister after she has completed ten years satisfactory service should cease and that promotion should only be made when à vacancy occurs and should then be on merit. We recommend that women radiographers, physiotherapists and x-ray sisters should be on the same scale as senior nursing sisters. We recommend that tutor sisters should also be on the same scale as senior nursing sisters and that they should receive a non- pensionable tutorial allowance of $60 per mensem. We propose two grades of mental nurse, one on the same scale as a nursing sister and the other on the same scale as a staff nurse.
107. While we are of the opinion that the person in sole charge of even a small hospital has to shoulder more responsibility than the sister in charge of a floor in a large and up to date hospital, we have experienced some difficulty in assessing salaries for matrons in view of the differences in size, equipment and facilities of the Colony's hospitals. We propose that there should be two