Reorganisation of Offices (Scotland). A BILL To provide for the transference of the respective powers and duties of the Scottish Board of Health, the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, and the Prison Commissioners for Scotland, to Departments of Health and Agriculture and a Prisons Department for Scotland, and to make further provision with regard to the office of Chairman of the Fishery Board for Scotland and other offices in Scotland, and with regard to the Public Registers, Records and Rolls of Scotland. Presented by Secretary Sir John Gilmour, supported by The Lord Advocate, Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland, and Major Elliot. Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 10 February 1928. To be purchased directly from H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses: 120, George Street, Edinburgh; York Street, Manchester; (Scotland) Bill. [AS AMENDED BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON SCOTTISH BILLS.] FINANCIAL MEMORANDUM. 66 Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill provide for the transference of the powers and duties of certain "Boards in Scotland to corresponding Departments." The question is one of machinery of Government and the Bill does not involve any change in the activities of the Departments, but only in administrative method and organisation. Under the Bill the present "Board" system will be replaced by a Departmental organization. It is anticipated that some diminution of cost may be effected. Clause 4 provides that the office of Deputy Clerk Register shall cease to exist, and by Clause 5 provision is made for the appointment of a Keeper of the Registers and Records of Scotland in whom shall be vested the whole powers and duties of the Deputy Clerk Register, the Keeper of the General Register of Sasines, &c., and the Keeper of the Register of Deeds. The Deputy Clerk Register had a salary, fixed by statute, of £1,200 per annum; the basic salary of the Keeper of Sasines is £1,000, and that of the Interim Keeper of Deeds £500. The new post of Keeper of the Registers and Records will carry such salary as the Treasury may fix. The reorganisation contemplated by these clauses will place the three existing Register House Departments (Record Office, Sasines Office, and Deeds Office) under a single head and consequential changes of staffing arrangements will be involved. The object is primarily efficiency, but the changes envisaged should also be conducive to economy and should permit of some strengthening of the staff, particularly as regards the Record Office, without an increase in the total cost of the Departments. Clause 7. The post of Director of Chancery is held on an interim basis pending legislation. The present cost of the Office is in the neighbourhood of (Scotland). £1,700 per annum, and it is anticipated that a saving will be effected if the duties are distributed among some or all of the other officers mentioned in the clause. Clause 8. By interim appointments the Principal Extractor of the Court of Session and the Assistant Extractor are already discharging the duties of Keeper of the Minute Book and his clerk, and the abolition of the latter offices will ensure the permanence of economies which have already been effected. Clause 10. Under the Court of Session (No. 2) Act, 1838, the work of the Department of the Principal Extractor falls to be performed by the Principal Extractor with the aid of an assistant extractor, a clerk, and engrossing clerks as required. The right of appointment of the assistant and clerks rests under that Act with the Principal Extractor. Engrossers were paid at piece-rates, but the work formerly done by them is now discharged by typists. Clause 10 transfers the right of appointment of the assistant extractor and of clerks to the Secretary of State, and the resolution proposes to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by _Parliament of officers appointed under the clause. The change proposed will allow the posts of assistant and clerk to be held on a pensionable basis, but it is not anticipated that any increase in the cost of the establishment will be involved. The remaining clauses of the Bill do not raise any question affecting expenditure. |