Civil Service (Executive Grades)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 July 1973.

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Photo of Mr Kenneth Baker Mr Kenneth Baker , St Marylebone 12:00, 25 July 1973

I have made no aspersion. I was about to say that I did not intend to deal with this point. I intend to reply to the points raised by the hon. Member for Kelvingrove, but I cannot help drawing the conclusion that the arguments put forward by the hon. Gentleman are almost word for word in this booklet.

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and many others are genuinely interested in the arguments he put forward. From his opening remarks it is apparent that he appreciates the changing position of civil servants, and the changing position of civil servants within the Civil Service.

The hon. Gentleman referred to Whitleyism, and in this I am sure that we shall be helped by the contribution of all the Civil Service unions. He did not pay due tribute to the achievements of over 50 years of Whitleyism. Over this long period a joint approach to problem solving has proved succesful and has often been the envy of both management and staff in the private sector. This is something of which the Civil Service has been rightly proud and I am sure that it will continue to be so.

I do not underestimate the strength of feeling which recent industrial action has evinced, nor do I wish to understate the regret that must be felt by most people, including large numbers of civil servants, at this departure from tradition whereby a solution was generally found in matters of dispute through the Whitley Council system rather than through industrial action. I refute the implication that progress can be achieved only by coercion and confrontation.

Whitleyism does not preclude direct negotiations by individual unions in matters which are the sole concern of the staff whom they are recognised as representing. Pay research negotiations, for example, are invariably conducted with the unions recognised to represent the staff concerned in the survey.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of the difficulties that the executive grades are experiencing and have experienced for some time. I am well aware of the arguments expressed in the publication "The Case for Middle Management in the Civil Service". The hon. Gentleman dealt with many of these arguments and I will specifically reply to them.

The hon. Gentleman claimed that the various methods used in the past are not appropriate and have not produced job satisfaction nor the appropriate rate of reward for the degree and type of responsibility involved. The hon. Gentleman said that pay research reviews, which were established under the Priestley Report—a policy which has been followed by successive Governments—are based on reviews which are made a year previously and are, therefore, a year out of date. The rates collected during the Pay Research Unit's review are continually up-dated as changes occur through the year. All the rates used to settle Civil Service pay for a 1st January settlement are in payment in the firms concerned on that date. I think that the hon. Gentleman must have misunderstood the position. The reviews are not a year out of date.

The hon. Gentleman dealt at some length with promotion, the lack of promotion and how long promotion took. He also referred to the length of the incremental scales. The system of scales in the Civil Service is important not only for executive grades but for typists and others. The hon. Gentleman omitted to recognise that the executive officer grade is a reservoir of talent into which three streams of recruitment flow—promoted clerical officers, "A" level entrants and graduates, for all of whom different parts of the scale are used. The scale relates starting pay to age, from 18 to 25. The hon. Gentleman ignored the system introduced in negotiation with the Society of Civil Servants in 1971 which can give an incremental jump after three years' satisfactory service.

The hon. Gentleman asserted that the system of promotion was old-fashioned and did not allow recognition at a sufficiently early age. That is simply untrue. About two-thirds of those in the principal grade are former higher executive officers, and 30 per cent. of those at under-secretary level and above do not come from the former administrative class.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned staff reports and job appraisal reviews. Staff report forms have been thoroughly revised to provide the best vehicle for achieving a common assessment, and an imaginative programmed learning system of training has been devised, validated and introduced. Job appraisal reviews have been introduced. There is nothing political in this. They were introduced under the Labour Government. They are a follow-through from the Fulton Report and have been introduced only with the most thorough preparation.

The Civil Service Department has produced a training film on these reviews which has been much admired by firms outside the public sector. Private firms have hired it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity of seeing that film and appreciating the great care we take over the job appraisal of civil servants from year to year. This is not confined to executive grades but includes other grades as well.

The hon. Gentleman implied that the executive officer was very dissatisfied, underpaid and under-appreciated and that we were having difficulties in recruitment. We are having difficulties in recruitment. But they are very much restricted to the London area. They are not experienced in the area which the hon. Gentleman represents, for example. Some of his colleagues on the Labour benches came to see me only last week to advocate greater dispersal of civil servants to the Glasgow area, to West Central Scotland and to Scotland generally. They made the reverse point to that which the hon. Gentleman made. They said that there was a superfluity of people waiting to become executive officers in Scotland. The point which the hon. Gentleman made about a shortfall of recruitment does not assist his constituency, his city or his country.