CO129-558-8 Revision of salaries 19-8-1936 - 11-2-1937 — Page 108

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for any duties on which the Directors of Education may see fit to employ them. The director is thus able to transfer officers from inspecting to teaching duties as may seem expedient, and this elasticity in organisa- tion is in the general interests of efficiency. From this point of view the introduction of a system of grades, which would necessarily tend to some extent to make the organisation less fluid, is to be deprecated.

Finally it is pointed out that Education Officers cannot be said, when they are appointed, to have as a rule such a degree of special knowledge or experience as to justify them in being regarded as specially qualified in their profession in the sense that, for example, Agricultural Officers or Engineers are so qualified. There seems therefore no justification for granting them in the initial stages a higher salary than Administrative Officers, and on this basis, if a promotion bar is inserted in the scale at £840, the effect of the change would be, not only to reduce the minimum of the scale at present attached to junior Educational appointments from £400 to £350, but also to reduce the maximum from £920 to £840 in spite of the reduction in the pension constant.

For all these reasons it is proposed to retain the present system and to grant Education Officers the same long scale as Admini- strative Officers. It will be understood that by Education Officers are meant those generally described as Superintendents of (Native) Education. Different considerations apply in the case of teachers of technical subjects, and of officers employed in Europe an education, and no attempt at standardisation of scales for these would appear to be useful.

ORDINARY CIVIL DEPARTMENTS

5. Police Customs and Treasury

Candidates for appointment to these Departments are not ex- pected to have the same qualifications as candidates for appointment to the Administrative Service, and they do not attend a University course of instruction. In the existing system recognition is given to these factors by fixing the initial salary of the "ordinary civil" scale at a lower figure than that of the Administrative scale, the increments in both cases being the same. It is considered, however, that a lower initial salary than £350 a year would probably be inade- quate in some dependencies to enable officers to maintain themselves in a manner suitable to their position in the Service, and might seriously affect the standard of candidates offering themselves for appointment. It is, therefore, proposed that the initial salary of the "Ordinary Civil" scale should not be reduced below that figure, but that the distinction between the "ordinary civil" and the Administrative scales should be marked by a somewhat reduced rate of incremental increase.

Under the existing system the point at which the first promo- tion bar in the "Ordinary Civil" scale is fixed varies in different dependencies and in different departments. The most generally accepted point for the bar is at present £720; but some increase is desirable in this respect in order to compensate officers partially for the reduc- tion in prospective pension. On the other hand, it has to be borne in mind that the reduction made in the initial scale of salary in these departments is much less than the reduction in the Administrative and other departments. Accordingly, it is proposed that the promotion bar should be placed at £750, leaving a range from £750 to £920 available for a higher grade or grades.

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