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immediately below it. The detailed pay scales proposed for the main classes form a sensible and coherent structure. Taken as a whole, the Commission's proposals on pay, hours and leave represent fair treatment for civil servants in comparison with conditions in other employments.

10. The cuts in leave, and the loss in take-home pay caused by the abolition of overtime, will not be popular in the Service, and there is no doubt that these features will make it very difficult to secure the acceptance of the proposals by staff interests. The general view of the Treasury and the main Departments at the official level, with which I agree, is that it would be a mistake to concede more favourable leave or hours than the Commission propose, and a mistake also to make any considerable adjustments in the pay scales which might mean that the new pay-structure became distorted before it was ever applied. The difficulty about the proposals lies in their short-term effects on existing staff, not in their long-term effects; any concessions should therefore take the form of specially favourable treatment for existing staff as regards, for instance, their point of entry to the new scales.

THE 5-DAY WEEK

11. The Commission propose a 10-day fortnight, to be followed as soon as possible by a 5-day week. Most Departments are inclined to think that when they come to making a change it would not be materially more difficult to go from a 5-day to a 5-day week without the intermediate step of a 10-day fortnight, and that two changes within a short period of years would be a mistake. Accept- ance of the 5-day week in principle, for application as soon and as widely as possible, would undoubtedly be a welcome concession to make to the staff. There can, of course, be no question of closing Government Offices every Saturday, particularly those Offices (employment exchanges, post offices, &c.) which directly serve the public, where Saturday morning is often the busiest time. The 5-day week can only be operated by means of a rota system. Indeed, some Departments -for example, the Inland Revenue-feel that an immediate stride to the 5-day week would be impracticable for them, and they would rather go to a 10-day fortnight as an intermediate step. All this needs further working out, and it seems inevitable that for some time at least there may have to be different practices in different Departments, with a wide degree of departmental discretion.

EXTRA STAFF

12. On an arithmetical basis, the Commission's proposals for a reduction in actual working hours (3 per cent. in the provinces and 8 per cent. in London) would, although partially offset by reductions in leave, require an increase of perhaps 12,000 staff on a present total of 380,000 in the grades affected in order to maintain present total man-hours in the Service. But I am assured that an increase of this order need not and will not occur. It could not at the present time, if only because such a number of extra staff could not be recruited; and recruitment would be particularly difficult in the most hard pressed grades and

areas.

13. Moreover, preliminary estimates by Departments suggest that they can get the work done in reduced hours (partly by extra effort and partly by some redeployment) with at any rate much smaller additions to staff and in many cases none at all. But some Departments in some places will need, either to be allowed some extra staff if they can get them, or to continue regular overtime for the present if they cannot.

14. Too much continued overtime would defeat one of the main objects of the proposals, and is incidentally more expensive than extra staff. But public opinion would clearly not take kindly to substantial increases in Service numbers to enable civil servants to work shorter hours. I should like to see it laid down that employment of extra staff is only to be permitted to a very limited extent; and that recourse must be had to all other practicable measures, before any appreciable extra staffs are taken on.

15. There is good hope that the dilemma can be substantially avoided, particularly if the problem is tackled cautiously and stage by stage. In the last resort the fact that it may be necessary to continue a considerable amount of

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