CO129-577-8 Junior Clerical Service- petition for improvements in salaries and conditions of service 6-7-1939 - 19-12-1939 — Page 38

Enclosure No.5.

7.

38

X

that by so large a net addition to expenditure.

I

suggest, therefore, that a countervailing economy should

be secured by withdrawing the privilege of rent allowances

from officers promoted under the new system.

13.

Rent allowances for the Junior Clerical Service,

as for other Asiatic staff, are now governed by General

Order 119, of which a copy is enclosed. The broad effect

is that most officers of over ten years service are

drawing allowances varying from $96 to $300 per annum.

No attempt is made to provide officers of this class

with Government quarters except in rare cases when

individuals are required to live at out-stations such as

Taipo or Stanley. Nor do I think that it is in the least necessary for Government to provide quarters for locally

domiciled officers of this category. The rent allowance

is not therefore a genuine allowance in lieu of quarters,

but operates as an addition to salary. At the same time, no logical justification can be found for the limitation

to officers of ten years service, which is periodically

a ground of protest, nor is it easy to find any logical

answer to demands for increase in such allowances as

rents rise. As in the case of senior officers, the

privilege (entirely theoretical for the vast majority

of these officers) of occupying Government quarters at

a rental of six per cent of salary carries with it the

pension privilege of adding one sixth to pensionable

emoluments.

14.

The whole system is thus artificial and it

would be a very desirable simplification (and an economy

in pensions) to abolish it. This can best be done by

absorbing the rent allowances into salary as opportunity

offers and I consider that the present opportunity

should be taken to effect the change for the large