Civil Service Pay, 1875 to 1950

Abstract

1. The study of Civil Service pay is rewarding for three reasonsfirstly, because information is available in relation thereto which allows the construction of uninterrupted statistical series, relating to various grades and classes of labour, for a considerable number of years; secondly, because it does a great deal to fill the gaps in our knowledge of salary movements; and thirdly, because what was, fifty years ago, a very special case, has recently become much more general. A large section of the economy is now having to face problems, with regard to the determination of pay, that the Civil Service (in particular, the Post Office) has had to face since the end of the era of patronage, i.e., since the emergence of the modern Civil Service in the 1870's. The Civil Service, local authorities, Transport Commission, National Coal Board and Gas and Electricity Authorities between them now employ some 3,860,000 workers, out of a total in civil employment (in June 1953) of 21,569,000. Thus, nearly 18 per cent. of the occupied population are in the embrace of the public sector of the economy, their pay determined by a set of forces different in important respects from that generally obtaining in the private sector. None the less, in the long run, the Civil Service and its young companions must compete with their rival employers of the private sectorthey cannot offer a rate below the market rate for more than a few years, for, if they did, their supply of labour, both as to quantity and quality, would become inadequate. In this article, the course of pay rates for various groups of Civil Servants will be considered and compared with other variablesgeneral wage rates, national income per occupied person, and clerical pay rates outside the Civil Service.