-7-
set out in Civil Affairs Circular No. 67 of 12th December, 1945 should not be lightly interfered with and indeed should not be modified except with the concurrence of the interested parties. In recommending that Government should continue to adhere to a system of remuneration of daily labour fixed on the advice of the Labour Advisory Board we have taken into consideration the fact that such remuneration is more liable to be affected by changes in the price of rice and the general economic situation in the Colony than are the emoluments of monthly paid officers. Any revised daily wage rates which we might fix at the present time might in a very short space of time become inappropriate and outdaved. We feel that any recommendations on our part in this connexion would deprive the present system of its flexibility and react to the detriment both of the workers themselves and of Government.
19.
We have recommended revised salary scales for many officers in the lower grades who are at present employed by Government on a monthly basis, but who would if employed by private concerns be on a daily paid basis. We have done so, because such employees, if not on the permanent pensionable establishment, are entitled under Regulations C of the Pensions Ordinance, 1932, to allowances on retirement. We recommend that in future as many of the lower grade staff as possible should be employed on daily rates of pay, but with a guaranteed 30 day month and that monthly rates of pay and posts on the permanent pensionable establishment should be confined as far as the lower grades of the service are concerned to officers with a special degree of skill in their particular trade or calling to officers with long service and to those performing supervisory dutics. We feel that such a system would give Hoads of Departments greater discretion and freedom in tho employment of labour and would free the Secretariat from a considerable amount or routine personnel work.
Basis of Revision.
20.
In drawing up proposed basic salary scales we have, wherever possible, borne in mind the revised salary scales accepted in Great Britain in recent years as a result of various inquiries such as the Rushcliffe Reports on Nurses, the Spens Report on the Remuneration of General Practitioners, the Burnham Reports on Teachers' Salaries, the scales adopted in the United Kingdom for the Scientific Civil Service, the proposals of the Joint Negotiating Committee (Hospital Staffs) for the salaries of medical technicians, the rates adopted by municipal authorities for engineers, etc. It has not always been possible to make direct comparisons since in some cases local standards and requirements differ from those in the United Kingdom. The present income levels of many local private medical practitioners, for example, are higher than those contemplated in the Spens Report, but this is in all probability a temporary phenomenon. due to the disruption in medical training during the Japanese occupation and the consequent shortage of qualified practitioners. In such cases we have assumed in fixing basic salaries for locally recruited staff that the present income levels which are inflated by reason of scarcity value will in due course be stabilised at a figure more nearly approximating to the United Kingdom
14