Sessional_Paper_1948 — Page 14

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retaining the established relation between the salaries of the officers in these posts. Another question which we have by no means resolved is the relative value of the mainly administrative duties of a Deputy Director and the professional duties of a senior professional officer.

25. An Assistant Director does not share the responsibilities of the Director even by devolution and his value as compared with that of an experi- enced professional officer of the same department is even less easy to assess. The salary of the Assistant Director in the Public Works Department is higher than that of an executive engineer and a comparable grading was proposed by the Director of Education. We suggest that Government should consider and lay down the general principles which should govern the relation and functions of these largely administrative officers in professional departments.

DIFFICULTIES ARISING FROM HIGH REMUNERATION OBTAINABLE BY PROFESSIONAL MEN LOCALLY

26.

A further difficulty which faced us was the possibility that in certain professions the post war income level which a local candidate might expect might be higher than the salary which would attract a similarly qualified candidate from overseas. This possibility caused us considerable difficulty in formulating our proposals regarding expatriation pay, but we have come to the conclusion that the policy of fixing basic salaries to suit local candidates does not imply that a local candidate should be engaged whatever the cost. This situation can, in our opinion, only be caused by conditions of temporary scarcity and we have preferred in such cases to ignore temporarily exaggerated rates of income and to base our recommendations on scales accepted by the professions in the United Kingdom.

QUALIFICATIONS

27. In recommending revised scales of pay we have assumed, especially in the professional services, that officers possess the recognised essential profes- sional qualifications. For example, we have not regarded the possession of a degree in engineering as in itself qualifying a man for appointment on the scale proposed for engineers; we have taken it for granted that he shall also have served the professional apprenticeship that would qualify him for admis- sion to his professional institution. We have assumed for example that locally trained doctors appointed on to the scale will have had at least two years supervised experience in a hospital or will have had the kind of apprenticeship that is recommended in the Spens Report on the Remuneration of General Practitioners. We have assumed that medical officers appointed from overseas will be men who have had at least three or four years good experience before they are selected; that schoolmasters and schoolmistresses will likewise have had teaching experience in a good school at home.

FUTURE RECRUITMENT POLICY

28. But any attempt to put into operation the policy outlined in White Paper Colonial No. 197 in our view clearly necessitates the most careful planning by Government of the future system of recruitment. Acceptance of the policy that people resident in the Colony should at the earliest possible date man the public service implies a clear understanding of two further issues:—

(i) Appointment from overseas shall henceforth be in some sense specialist. Men of special aptitude may have to be appointed temporarily or permanently to undertake specific tasks, but such appointments are not likely to create resentment. Men who have had specialised training that the Colony is not yet equipped to provide, administrative officers or inspectors of works, for example, whose great value comes not from specific training but by their having had an opportunity to grow up in a tradition of politics or craftsmanship which is yet to be established in the Colony-are still needed. Men of the professional services, medical, engineering, educational or scientific, can specialise in the United Kingdom and their specialist knowledge will readily be recognised by the people of the Colony. Such men will accept the position that it is an important part of their function to train the men who are to supersede them, as already has so widely happened in India. We have therefore not hesitated to provide for the continuance of overseas appointments but always with the implicit proviso that, in every case, the men appointed can contribute something which forwards the general policy of opening the public service to the people of the Colony,