PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference
IT ། ། ། ། ། mmin...him C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
208
APPENDICES V. AND VL
APPENDIX V.
MEMORANDUM COMMUNICATED BY MR. H. DE R. WALKER, M.P.
My object in raising the question of the Crown Agents in the House has been largely attained by the appointment of the Enquiry Committee.
As this Committee will no doubt have been sup- plied with the recent Parliamentary questions and answers on the subject referred to them, I need do no more than suggest two matters which appear to be worthy of their consideration in addition to the speci- fic point of the method of selection of the staff of the Crown Agents" Office.
(1) The Constitutional position of the Crown Agents. They are nominally responsible to the Crown Colo- nies and Protectorates, but in practice such responsi bility cannot lead to any effective control, since com- plaints should naturally come through the Governors, and the Governors will be chary of identifying them- selves with any such complaints in view of the inti- mate relationship between the Colonial Office and the Crown Agents. Nor has Parliament much to say in It is true that, since the Secretary of the matter. State supervises the Crown Agents, their action can be called in question upon the Vote for his salary, and upon other occasions; but, since there is no sum upon the estimates, this House scarcely realises its ultimate responsibility, and, as regards the Colonial Office vote, the time is occupied with matters of more immediate importance. The actual working of the Crown Agents Office is therefore subjected to very little, if any, outside control at the present time.
(2) The Office Reserve Fund. This fund would ap- pear to be much larger than is necessary to meet any demands likely to be made upon it in the absence of gross mismanagement on the part of the Crown Agents. If the fund is unnecessarily large, the Crown Colonies and Protectorates have been paying more than they need have done for the services of the Crown Agents. The Under Secretary, moreover, denied that this system gives the Crown Agents any interest in increased expenditure; but it is difficult to see how this denial can be substantiated, seeing that the com- missions of the Crown Agents, from which the reserve fund is drawn, automatically increase with the num- ber and extent of the transactions carried through by them. Since, therefore, the existence of such a fund is indispensable, it is worthy of consideration by what more satisfactory means it might in future be kept at such a level as the necessities of the situation re- quire.
From the point of view of a Member of Parliament, I would suggest, generally, that a suspicion, possibly quite unjustified, as to the working of the Crown Agents' Office, has been fostered by the action of the Colonial Office, whose spokesmen, when questioned as to the Crown Agents, have shown a quite singular ability to give as little information as possible.
July, 16th, 1908.
APPENDIX VI.
H. DE R. WALKER.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE CROWN AGENTS in Sir E. Blake's Minute of 20th September, 1904, to inquire whether there is any dissatisfaction amongst the staff as to the conditions of service existing in the office, and, if so, on what grounds. (With marginal notes by Sir E. Blake, July, 1908.)
MEMBERS OF the CommittÉE :
Appointed by the Crown Agents
Elected by the Staf
The Committee held their first meeting on the 30th September, 1904, Mr. Antrobus in the chair, when it was decided to invite members of the staff to appear before them and to give any suggestions which they might wish to make, and at the same time to request those members who had anything to say to first state briefly on paper the points which they wished to bring forward, it being intimated at the same time that all such documents would be treated as strictly confi dential, and would be destroyed when the Committee dissolved if desired. They also asked Mr. Wimperis to act as hon. secretary, to which he agreed.
The Committee then adjourned to Tuesday, the 11th October. They have held 21 sittings. They have received 74 written documents, and have interviewed personally 46 members of the staff.
It was decided by the Committee that, in making their report, it would be desirable to state it under three heads, viz. :-
1. General grievances. As stated to the Com- 2. Personal grievances. mittee.
3. Recommendations with the view of:
(a) Bringing out more clearly what the Com- mittee understand to be the nature of the grievances.
(b) Suggestions which may aid the Crawn
Agents in dealing with them.
Mr. Antrobus, Chief Clerk, Major Carmichael.
Mr. Dunn, from the 1st class. Mr. Willis, from the 2nd class. Mr. Warde, from the 3rd class.
In stating the grievances the Committee decided that it would be convenient to arrange them under the heads of the classes existing in the office and to com- mence with the lowest and proceed upwards. The following appear to be the
GENERAL GRIEVANCES.
CLASS IV.
1. The decrease in the annual increment from £10 to £6.
2. The uncertainty of the meaning of the minute of the 22nd December, 1900, as regards the annual in- crement which may be considered as the minimum which will be granted to those who have entered the office without having passed the Civil Service Exam- ination for the second division.
8. Promotion to Class III. The fear that Class III. will continue to be recruited from outside the office in preference to a consideration of the claims of members of Class IV. for promotion.
4. The feeling of insecurity of tenure owing to the fact that the appointments are on the Supplementary List, and that it is generally understood that, while this is so, there is no guarantee that those who have
ad in
1905,
this
:be
din
ito.
ity on
APPENDIX VI.—continued,
entered the class will be eligible for pension, or that the insurance scheme will be made applicable as stated in the office minute-while there is the chance at any time of dismissal at short notice owing to the appar- ently temporary nature of the engagement.
5. A number of complaints as to the responsibility of the work which is put upon them, which they con- sider to be disproportionate to the amount of salary which they are receiving.
6. The inadequacy of the amount of money-granted for tea to those who are compelled to stay at work beyond 6.45 p.m.
7. A complaint from those employed in G and S and as to the large amount of overtime which they have been required to work, for which if they had been in the second division of the Civil Service, they would have been paid.
CLASS III.
1. The principal grievance of this class is that members of it do not know what amount of annual Increment they may look forward to with certainty, while the constantly changing increments equally constant discontent.
cause
2. The drop in the increment from £15—at which it had stood for many years-to £10.
3. No definite information as to the maximum of the clas, nor assurance that there is any chance of their ever rising to any point beyond their present actual position.
4. What of information as to the system under which members of the class are selected for pro- motion to any of the higher posts in the office, in- cluding a general desire for the adoption of some scheme by which those who are passed over may be assured that their cases have not been overlooked.
6. Certain of the class in each department are em- ployed in work of a more responsible nature than the majority of the class. These consider that they should receive higher pay than those over whom they have to exercise authority, and for whose work they are responsible to the heads of their departments.
8. Certain members suggest that they have felt it a grievance that they have at times been called upon to do the work of a senior without receiving any recognition, and they suggest that "acting should be granted in such cases.
pay
7. The members of the Pay Department complain of the long hours which they have been called upon to work for long stretches of time, and request relief, coupling with this a further complaint that one of their members was lent to another department when work was slack, but when pressure came his return was refused.
8. Appointments to the higher posts are at times not filled up at once, junior members of a department being thus called upon to do the work of the senior without recognition of the fact.
9. The engineering assistants desire to be so described in the Colonial Office List and other refer- ence books, in order that they may not lose their professional status.
10. In the case of exceptional overtime, such as occurs in, eg, the case of the issuing of a loan, the extra late work should be recognised.
11. Members who are appointed on probation for one year complain that although that period has long ago expired they are still on the Supplementary list, and are not becoming eligible for pension until their appointment is fixed, while they are for this reason, at the present time, being kept out of the insurance scheme, although in some intances they are married
men.
LADIES.
A desire to have the date for possible retirement made earlier than the age of 60 and, in the case of marriage, a desire for the grant of a bonus in lieu of enied such pension as would have been earned. retary
A complaint of long hours comes from the Corre- Arally spondence Department.
te, bat
M
21
ASSISTANTS. CLARE II.
209
1. No system of minimum and maximum salaries for the various posta.
2. Uncertain increments.
HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS. CLASS I.
1. No system of minimum and maximum salaries for the various posta.
2. No system of increments.
GENERAL GRIEVANCES.
1. The post of Secretary.-There was a general feel- ing in the office that the post of Secretary might have been filled by the appointment of a member of the staff.
2. The quantity of work and the responsibility has increased without increase of salary to those in the responsible positions, while, in some instances, the increased and more responsible work is actually being performed by members who are receiving very much lower salaries than was considered necessary for those who preceded them.
3. M and L Departments consider it a grievance Done. that they should be considered sub-departments of the Secretariat, and they complain that this has resulted in their deputy heads not being recognised as assistants, and M Department put forward & further statement for consideration, viz., that the work which it
performs is of equal importance with that of G and S.
PERSONAL GRIEVANCES.
A certain number of personal grievances have been brought before the Committee.
In some cases men have letters, which were pro- duced to the Committee, in which it is clearly stated that they would have prospects of rising "to posts carrying from £500 to £800 a year"; but the present scale of salaries does not appear to justify this idea.
A certain number state that they were definitely promised an annual increment of £15 and they received this increment for some years; others understood on joining, from the precedent of past years, that 15 would be the minimum increment-this increment was reduced to £10. No reason was given for the reduc- tion, and it therefore made it appear as if the Crown Agents were dissatisfied with the manner in which the staff had performed their duties, though at the time the office was being worked at very high pressure. Miss Lloyd states that when she was taken over from the office of the Treasurer of the Niger Coast Protectorate she was promised that her salary, though only commencing at £120 a year, should eventually be increased to the same that she was then receiving, viz., £160 a year, whereas it has stopped at £150 a year.
Miss Boddy (Correspondence Department) considers that as the head lady in the Correspondence Depart- ment she should be paid a higher salary than that received by the other ladies in the department, viz., £150 a year, and she points out that the promise was made to her when she succeeded Miss Cather that her salary should be on the same scale; Miss Cather was then receiving £190 a year.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
Although the Crown Agents only ask for inquiry as to whether there is any dissatisfaction amongst the staff, and if so on what grounds, the Committee con- sider that it is necessary to make certain recommenda- tions in order to emphasise what they understand to be the grievances of a serious nature.
They have endeavoured to abstain from figures as far as possible, but they have found that it is neces- sary to use them to a certain extent, in order to illus- trate clearly the manner in which they consider the serious grievances could be redressed.
The Committee have given very careful considera- tion to the question of increments, and are unanimously of opinion that the varying increments are the chief cause of dissatisfaction, and they very strongly recom. mend that the annual increments should be fixed at a definite figure per annum for each class or appointment. The staff should be given clearly to understand that a man's reward for good work will not consist in the possibility of his getting in any one year an increase of pay beyond the usual increment, but in promotion
DD
1