APPENDIX B
THE ROLE OF THE TREASURY
1. The ‘normal machinery’
The Treasury was the custodian of the ‘normal machinery’, having ultimate authority over personnel numbers, grades and salaries throughout the Civil Service. Each Department’s annual salary budget was based on a Treasury-approved ‘establishment’ – an agreed number of staff in specific grades assigned to particular functions. Departmental establishments were reviewed in periodic staff inspections, and could only be altered with Treasury approval. Departments could only recruit to approved levels and in approved grades, in a process overseen by Civil Service Commission. Departmental chief personnel officers, known as Establishment Officers, shared a corporate responsibility, under the Treasury’s chairmanship, for ensuring the rules were followed, through a series of instructions called Establishment Officer Circulars (EOCs). These arrangements continued throughout the post-war period until in the early 1980s, when Departments began to press for and eventually won the right to devise their own grading structures, manage their own manpower budgets, and recruit their own staff.
2. Inter-departmental transfers
In January 1944, the Treasury issued Establishment Officers Circular No. 688 (EOC 688)[Dg1] on the interchange of staff between Government Departments.[1] The instruction set out procedures to be followed for:
Permanent staff
Departments should send Treasury details of civil servants available for release to other Departments. They should also inform Treasury of vacancies they wished to fill by the loan of staff from other Departments, except for professional staff on MOLNS’s Central Register, to whom Departments should apply first, before seeking Treasury concurrence to their loan.
Temporary staff
Redundant temporary officers should be reported to MoLNS: the local Employment Office for tying and clerical grades; or MoLNS Appointments Department for grades Temporary Assistant and above, and technical and professional officers.
Departments seeking to fill posts by the appointment of temporary staff should inform MoLNS of their requirements.
Negotiation of loans or transfers of particular officers
The Treasury should be consulted before any action is taken by Departments to obtain the services of an individual or group, permanent or temporary, employed elsewhere in Government service. Treasury will advise whether any alternative officers are available. If negotiations proceed for the loan (of permanent staff) or transfer (of temporary staff), Treasury would consult MoLNS to ensure that obligations under the National Service Acts are considered. The Treasury or, if agreed, the enquiring Department, would then negotiate on the release with the Establishment Officer of the employing Department. In no circumstances should a direct approach be made to the candidate until his Establishment Officer has agreed to this.
3. Procedures for filling Control Commission senior positions[2]
Notwithstanding EOC688, the following extracts from Control Commission letters show that Treasury tolerated a direct approach to Departments when seeking to fill senior positions.
22.11.44 G A Aynseley, Control Commission, to L L Thompson, Treasury
“From the beginning, and well before my time, the Deputy Commissioners have been working on the principle of trying to get the Departments of HMG concerned with the branch of administration for which an appointment is required in the Commissions, to make a nomination. The resultant nominee may or may not be a civil servant. The reason for such action to enable specialised units such as ours to be staffed with first-rate officers and with the requisite degree of urgency is apparent to me, and this procedure was confirmed at a meeting held in the FO on 5th September, which I think you have seen …It was never very clearly laid down by whom such approaches to Government Departments should be made, and I know that Heads of Divisions and Branches have done so from the outset”.
Thompson, writing to Aynseley on 12.12.44, does not mention Aynseley’s letter, merely stating requests should continue to be made through the Treasury for grades up to and including Staff Officer, Higher Clerical Officer and Higher Executive Officer; administrative staff up to & including Principal, and ‘senior executives’; and Assistant Secretary upwards.
10.1.45 G A Aynseley, Control Commission, to J I C Crombie, Treasury
“The earliest practice was for the [Deputy Commissioners] to make informal approach to the Government Department, generally to the Permanent Head of the Department, responsible in this country for the functions to be controlled in Germany or Austria. This practice, I believe, is quite well-known in the Foreign Office. Later, with the advent of Chiefs of Division etc (the nominees under the early practice) they in turn performed a certain amount of “approaching”. By the time I got here [in October 1944] the practice was well-established and had become know[n] and accepted in many Departments. … It is actually the only practical method of building up the mass of specialised personnel of the greatly varied qualification and experience required in the two Commissions. My efforts have been bent mainly to keeping our people on [the] rails. …A few cases have gone off the rails: this cannot be avoided in any new show which is building up rapidly in a very varied field. … I hate to say this: but if perfection of procedure is to be our gospel, then a great augmentation of staff in this branch will be necessary.”
4. Control Commission exchanges with the Treasury about filling posts
On 18 January 1945 G A Aynsley, Control Commission, wrote what he described as a “good stiff letter” to his Treasury opposite number, Lionel Thompson. The Commissions were becoming perturbed at the inability to secure their minimum demands, and the Deputy Commissioners were considering warning the Foreign Secretary of the serious state of affairs. Aynsley still thought that an appeal to Government Departments by the Chancellor, which he had proposed the previous November, might have been productive.[3] Thompson’s reply, in Whitehall terms, verges on the insolent: it would not have escaped Aynseley’s notice that “the A1 priority in this country is the housing programme”.[4] Aynseley noted wearily to Ivone Kirkpatrick that he was somewhat tired with the constant need to plead the cause of the Control Commissions. He hoped that one day their priority would be stepped up, “as it will need to be if the Russians go on at their present rate!”[5]
Perhaps as a result of Aynseley’s note, the issue was escalated, and General Kirby wrote on 9.2.45 to Sir William Eady, 2nd Permanent Secretary in the Treasury, reminding him that the Treasury had accepted a nucleus establishment for the Commissions in mid-October 1944 but that “despite all the promises of assistance” only two civilians were actually present, although another four had recently been offered. At present, there was no sign of anyone else forthcoming “despite all Mr Aynseley’s efforts”. [Dg2] Four months’ progress was thus represented by 33% of posts filled; 33% of nominations made; and 33% still outstanding. In the meantime, the war was steadily nearing its end, and the Chiefs of Staff had recently decided that the Commission should be ready to operate by 1st May 1945 – only three months hence. At this rate, it was clear that the Commission would be unable to function when it was called upon to do so. Kirby asked Eady to take up with the Chancellor once again the question of priority. [Dg3] Around the Christmas period it had looked as if the war might go on for a very long time, but the situation had altered very considerably in the last few weeks [Dg4] and he feared that unless something was done, “all our efforts will come to naught”.[6]
Protracted correspondence between the Control Commission and Treasury during the final months of 1944 included many exchanges about individual cases where Treasury was perceived to be reluctant to provide active support on the Control Commission’s behalf; rather, the Commission was taken to task for failing to observe the proper procedures. There was real anger among senior Control Commission officials who were trying to fill key positions, as the following example illustrates. On 28.11.44 Aynesely, Control Commission, wrote to Thompson, Treasury, enclosing a minute received from Deputy Education Branch Director D C Riddy who wrote that he took a very serious view of the unwillingness of Government Departments to release 3 officials whom he had requested. His first nominations had been made in September but not one single civilian officer, other than his PA, had yet been secured. He could not judge whether the Commission’s work was more important than others’ but he could not accept responsibility for work with the re-education of Germany with second- or third-rate assistance”. Aynesely also forwarded copies of the negative responses he had received from Departments in respect of the individuals Riddy had asked for, telling Thompson that this was a foretaste of what to expect in trying to extract selected personnel from Government Departments. If Departments were already refusing to release a few specialist officials, what chance did they stand of securing a much greater number of non-specialist officers? [7]
5. Foreign Office German Department exchanges with Treasury about redundancies
The Staff Side of the Civil Service Staff Association[8] had agreed that, in dispensing with the services of surplus staff, sub-standard staff could be discharged first. This pleased the Treasury, who thought it would help to dispel “the prevalent impression in Whitehall that the Foreign Office German Department (FOGS) was over-staffed at lower levels”.[9] Procedures for discharging redundant temporary staff were issued on 12 November 1948[10] but, when it came to it, FOGS found it hard to identify those who were sub-standard. Explaining to the Treasury why the target of 1157 had been exceeded by 41, Maurice Dean, FOGS, observed, perhaps tongue in cheek, that “our problem of sub-standard clerks has rather melted away”.[11] In December, Crombie, Treasury, wrote to Eric Seal, FOGS, remonstrating about the failure to achieve the required reductions: it was ‘absolutely essential’ that the target of 1390 was met by 1.4.49. FOGS should be “more ruthless” in the Travel Department, where numbers had actually risen; and Treasury was worried by how few clerks had been identified as sub-standard: he was surprised, as poor staff quality had so often been mentioned as a reason for liberal staffing of the office, and wondered if the borderline had been set too low.[12] Seal replied month later saying he thought Crombie’s letters were “a little unkind”. He himself had been surprised when staff reported as sub-standard were subsequently found after trial under other supervisors to be adequately competent, adding mischievously “I am sure you will agree that we must not confuse misfits with incompetents.”[13]
[1] Establishment Officers Circular EOC688, 6.1.44. National Archives File FO936/362
[2] National Archives File FO936/362
[3] Aynsely to Thompson 18.1.45. National Archives File FO936/362
[4] Thompson to Aynsely, 22.145. National Archives File FO936/362
[5] Aynsely note to Kirkpatrick, Mack, 23.1.45. National Archives File FO936/362
[6] Major General Kirby to Sir William Eady, 9.2.45. National Archives File FO936/362
[7] Letter from Aynsley, FO to Thompson, Treasury, 26.11.44. National Archives File FO936/362
[8] The body representing mainstream staff in the Civil Service
[9] 22.7.48 Crombie, Treasury to FOGS. National Archive File FO936/179
[10] FO936/179 Functions, Organisation and Establishment of the German Section of the Foreign Office: Study by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
[11] 17.11.48 M J Dean to J I C Crombie. National Archive File FO936/179
[12] 29.12.48 J I C Crombie to Eric Seal, FOGS. National Archive File FO936/179
[13] 31.1.49 Eric Seal, FOGS to J I C Crombie, Treasury. National Archive File FO936/179
[Dg1]Treasury’s aim was to keep tight control of appointments, but the process was too rigid and slow for CCG’s requirements
[Dg2]Treasury, not FO must take the blame
[Dg3]Only Tsy can make Departments offer up staff
[Dg4]What does this mean?