MEDICAL
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9. The question of effecting a reduction in the initial salary offered to Medical Officers has been carefully considered. It has been represented, however, that a candidate with the qualifications desired for an appointment as a Medical Officer in East Africa, which include a period of practice subsequent to the conclusion of his train- ing, would be about 27 years of age, and would have spent at least £1,500 on his training. He might expect, if he remained in this country and sought employment under a Public Authority, an initial salary of about £500 a year with prospects of rising to £1,500 or £2,000. It is considered that the minimum initial salary which would induce men of the standard required to accept employment in East Africa should not be less than £600 a year, and taking into account the reduc- tion in the pension constant, that it would be unwise to provide a maxi- mum less than £1,000.
LEGAL
(i.e. Crown Counsel and Magistrates)
10.
The minimum salary allotted to the junior legal and judicial appointments under the existing salary scheme in the East African Dependencies varies between £600 and £720 in the different dependencies.
With the establishment of the Colonial Legal Service an en- deavour is being made to recruit for the Service candidates who, after being called to the Bar, have demonstrated their capacity and suitability for a Government appointment by practical & successful experience in the Courts; and in pursuance of this policy the Secretary of State indicated in his circular despatch of the 1st March, 1933, that the transfer of Adminis- trative Officers to legal appointments should in future be restricted to exceptional cases. On this basis legal officers will be recruited at a considerably later age than most, if not all, officers in other departments, and they will be men to whom it will be necessary to offer sufficiently attractive terms to induce them to surrender their pros~ pects at the Bar. In view of the general reductions which are proposed in the salary scales applicable to other departments, it might normally be expected that the initial salary for junior legal and judicial officers could appropriately be fixed in all cases at any rate at £600, a rate which already obtains in a number of dependencies. Such advice however as it has been possible to obtain on this question suggests that this figure is likely to be insufficient to attract candidates with the experience which is now regarded as necessary, and that as much as £700 or £720 may have to be offered. In that case it ought to be possible to effect economies at the other end of the scale. It must be remembered that only Magistrates and Crown Counsel are involved, the total number of whom is small, and that therefore the proportion of senior to junior posts in the legal and judicial depart- ments is high as compared with other departments. Legal officers may thus in the ordinary course of events look forward to a consider- ably shorter period of service in a junior capacity before receiving promotion. In these circumstances the attractions of a comparatively high maximum for the junior posts are not so great, nor is the need for a long scale so apparent, in the legal as in other spheres, and if the minimum salary of the scale is fixed at £700 or £720 it would seem justifiable, as a partial offset to the initial expenditure in- volved, to retain the existing maximum of £920.
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