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Subordinate Civil Service of the Colony is essential, that if the approved scheme is imperfect it should be amended, and that any amendment that may be desirable had better be introduced into the Post Office at a time when its general reorganization is proposed and should be extended to other Departments as opportunities occur by reason of vacancies having to be filled or the clerical staff
having to be reorganized.
4.
In considering what amendments are advisable
in the present classification scheme I have to guide me the system of grading which 1 introduced on the Gold Coast in substitution for an irregular classification which varied in different Depart- ments. This system proved successful in overcoming the difficul- ties experienced owing to clerks leaving the Government Service for more lucrative appointments under private Companies. It is shown on the following table in which, for convenience of compari- son, Pounds Sterling are reduced to Dollars at the rate of fl to
10 dollars:-
Grade.
! Salary. Minimum. Maximum.
Increment. Annually.
$
$
Sth. 250
400
50
5th. 400
600
50
4th. 600
800
50
3rd.
800
1,000
50
2nd. 1,000
1,500
100
1st. 1,500
2,000
100
Period in which maxinum salary of grade could be
reached. Years.
26
5
5
A defect of this system was that a clerk who had reached the maximum of one grade received no immediate increase of salary on promotion to a higher grade unless, as was usually done in the case of a man promoted after serving for more than a year on a maximum salary, he was given one increment in the new grade on
promotion.
5.
The present system of classification at
Hongkong is shown on the following table:-
t
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