NATIONAL INTEREST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 3

NATIONAL INTEREST

APPEALS DISMISSED

Two appeals from men employed in the Ministry of Supply against the decision of the district man-power officer were heard this week by the Industrial Man-power. Committee. A. H. Fawcett, a cost accountant, who was also appealed for by J. J. McCaskey and Son, appealed against his retention by the Ministry. He stated that he had been offered a position, as production manager with McCaskey and Son at £650 a year, with a bonus of at least £100 a year, but could not obtain release from his duties in the textile section as cost investigation officer. He. held the B.Com. degree and was a member of the Society .of Accountants. His salary in the Department was £14 odd a fortnight. Work had slackened in the textile section, and he had been replaced.

There was no authority for saying that he had been replaced, said Mr. Marshall, for the Ministry of Supply; if there was any slackening of work in that-section it would be taken up in cost investigation in ..other sections, such as footwear and radio. The Department was desperately short of staff.

Asked by the chairman,; Mr. Scott, what Fawcett's prospects would be with the Department, Mr. Marshall said that his salary would be reviewed at least annually; if he remained three years his salary was unlikely to increase beyond £470. The chairman: He might go to an essential industry in an almost controlling position, but in the Department he is practically a hack. Mr,. Marshall: No, I would not say: a hack. Far from it.

Mr. Hammond (a member of the committee): It is not a matter of personal sympathy with Mr. Fawcett. The question is what is in the national interest:

There had been a tremendous increase in the volume of work done by the Ministry of Supply, said Mr. Scott, as the result of the war; it was a difficult case to decide.

R. Si Wedderspoon, investigating officer in the Ministry of Supply, the second appellant, said he had secured a position with the Clyde Engineering Company, Ltd., but the district manpower officer had decided that he could not leave his present employment, and had made another man available. He claimed that there had been undue delay, 44 days, in the hearing of his1 appeal. No firm could have been expected to wait so long. The appeal committee had been on circuit, said Mr. Swift, who represented the man-power officer, and among many cases Wedderspoon had to take his turn.

After conferring by telephone with the engineering company the chairman said that he had been informed that the position was no longer vacant. The committee could not release him from his present employment, at least until another position was open that the committee considered was of importance in the national interest. Both the appeals were dismissed.