CO885-(18-19) — Page 667

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O.885

19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE:

for all the Colonies tends to render the work of the Crown Agents' Office somewhat more complex than that of the India Office, and calls for the employment of a relatively larger staff than might otherwise be required. The same considerations also apply to a comparison with the Buying Departments of the War Office and the Admiralty.

31. The India Office, the War Office, and the Admiralty appear to have no difficulty in maintaining proper control over their staffs without the absolute powers which the Crown Agents regard as essential for the proper working of their Office. The power to withhold increments in case of unsatisfactory work and to grant special rewards for exceptionally good services and the dependence of promotion on merit afford in the Civil Service adequate inducements to good work.

REORGANISATION.

32. The Committee do not recommend that the Crown Agents' Office should become either a Department of the Colonial Office or of the Home Civil Service. Such a change would not be acceptable to the Colonies, and no particular advantage would be gained by it. The functions of the office have no immediate relation to the Home Government, and the Treasury have always very properly avoided anything which might indicate responsibility for the acts of the Crown Agents.

33. In the opinion of the Committee the Crown Agents are officers of the Colonial Governments serving in England under the ultimate control of the Secretary of State. Such a position is not inconsistent with the appointment, discipline, and payment of the staff on Home Civil Service lines; it is analogous to that of the India Office, which is organised on the lines of the Home Civil Service, but is paid from Indian Funds.

34. In the case of the India Office, however, Parliament is annually afforded the opportunity of criticising the administration of the Department when the Indian Budget comes before it. No similar occasion is available in the case of the Crown Agents' Office. The Committee recognise the importance of affording to Parliament adequate opportunities of reviewing the operations of the Department, and they accordingly suggest that such steps should be taken as Parliament may consider desirable to bring the expenditure within their direct cognizance.

35. The Committee recommend that the staff of the Crown Agents' Office should be given definite scales of salary based upon those in force in the Home Civil Service. The staff appear to be unanimous in desiring this, and when in 1904 a Committee investigated the grievances of the Office, their report showed that the chief cause Appe of complaint was the uncertainty of rates of increment or of the maximum and VI minimum salaries of the various posts. This uncertainty and the consequent dis- content are, in the opinion of the Committee, more detrimental to the working of the Office than such relaxation of the absolute control of the Crown Agents over their staff as would be involved by the adoption of definite scales of salary on Civil Service lines. The change would not exclude the stoppage or reduction of increments for unsatisfactory work, and the grant of special rewards in the case of exceptional merit. The Crown Agents would retain the power to dismiss members of the permanent staff in case of misconduct, or to make special appointments from outside when the interests of the Service demand it, subject of course in both cases to the approval of the Secretary of State, who would exercise the same control over the Office expenditure as the Treasury exercise over the expenditure of ordinary Departments of the Home Civil Service.

MODE OF RECRUITING AND SALARIES OF STAFF.

36. Previous to 1901, the regular staff of the Office was selected by the Crown Agents on their own initiative, but without definite plan or educational test. This system dates from the commencement of the Office before the principle of competitive examinations was established for the Civil Service of this country. Excluding

REPORT.

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occasional appointments of men with special technical training, the staff appears to have been selected mainly from two classes-boys of 17-19 who had just left a grammar or secondary school, and men who had served as non-commissioned officers in the Army. A few years ago, however, five posts in Class III. were filled from the highest unsuccessful competitors for the examinations for Junior Appointments at the Admiralty-the names of the men being obtained from the Civil Service Commissioners. In the nineties boy clerks from the Civil Service Commission were first engaged. These have passed the ordinary Civil Service Commission examination for that class, and are allotted by the Commissioners to the Crown Agents' Office at the request of the Crown Agents. When they attain the age limit for boy clerks they antoiantically retire unless their services are retained by the Crown Agents as ordinary clerks.

In 1901 a Fourth Class was established below and supplementary to the regular establishment with the intention of thus creating a class corresponding to the Second Division of the Home Civil Service. It was hoped that a considerable proportion of this class would be filled by the boy clerks who had passed the Second Division qualifying examination. Up to the present time, however, only one member has done so, although out of the 65 members of the class 38 had previously been boy clerks. Of the remaining 27, three had been in Government employment, one was a son of a former clerk in the Office, three were recommended to the Crown Agents by members of the staff of the Colonial Office, and three were recommended by members of the Crown Agents' staff. The rest were for the most part appointed on the recommendation of the headmasters of the schools in which they had been educated.

37. The salaries paid are approximately as follows:-The ordinary Heads of Departments receive from £450 to £600 a year; the Chief Clerk and Accountant at present draws £800, of which £100 is remuneration as Chief Clerk; the two technical officers--the head of the Engineering and Works Department and the head of the Engineering Inspection Branch-receive £800 and £750 respectively, the former being on a definite scale of £700 to £1,000, rising by annual increments of £25. The Deputy Heads (Class 11.) receive from £300 to £450, and three of them are in receipt of personal allowances in addition to their salaries. The two Engineering Assistants in this Class, however, started at £350, instead of £300. The five Engineering Assistants in Class III, receive from £250 to £350, and the clerical staff --all of whom except four are heads of sections-receive from £90 to £300 a year. The Supplementary Clerks (Class IV.) have at present a minimum of £70 and a maximum of £250, but the minimum has varied somewhat since the grade was established in 1901. The Boy Clerks receive pay varying from 15s. to 198. a week, in accordance with the Civil Service scale. The salaries of the 16 Lady Clerks commence at £70 and rise to £150; the two Deputy Lady Heads receive from £150 to £200; and the two Lady Heads have nominally a minimum of £200 and a maximum of £250.

38. The arrangements for the future have next to be considered. The scales of salaries must depend upon the mode of recruitment, the class of men selected, and the duties to be performed. The effect of the reorganisation commenced in 1901, has been to introduce a number of clerks who have been appointed from the grade of Civil Service Boy Clerks without any further educational test or competition. It is probable that few of these will ever be qualified for promotion to the higher grades of the Office, and although the Committee fully recognise the great amount of purely routine work which has to be performed, they consider that it is desirable that a larger proportion of the staff should possess those superior educational attainments which would qualify them to rise to the posts of Heads and Deputy-Heads of Departinents.

39. The Committee recommend that the principle of open competitive examination for first appointment should in future be applied to the whole of the clerical staff. Theoretical objections may be urged to this method of selection, but the Committee are convinced that if the examination is properly adapted to the requirements of the service it usually produces men with better educational qualifications, powers of application, and general ability than the ordinary run of the class to which the candidates belong: it widens the area of choice, it avoids any suspicion of jobbery, and it tends to make men rely for promotion on their own abilities and energy.

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