The English Commission has 25, the Welsh 3, the Scotch 5, and the
Irish 4 Assistant Women Inspectors at £100-10-£300. Men Assistant
Inspectors begin at the same salary, but after two years they rise by
£15 to £350.
The English Commission has 19, the Welsh 1, the Scotch 5, and the Irish 5 Women Health Insurance Officers, on a scale of salary £80-5-£110, after two years rising by £7, 10s. to £150. This scale is precisely the same as that of Men Health Insurance Officers.
The duties of Men and Women Inspectors and Officers under the National
Health Insurance Commission are identical in character and scope.
The primary function of these officers is to impose upon the whole adult population the new conditions created by the Act—i.e., they have to ensure the proper payment of contributions in respect of all persons liable to be insured.
Trades are assigned to Men or Women Inspectors according as a trade employs men or women in greater numbers.
The Insurance Commissioners work through the Inspectors in all matters that are more susceptible to local treatment than to treatment by correspondence. The Inspectors obtain information and make local enquiries as to the facts in cases submitted to the Commissioners for determination under various sections of the Act.
An interesting account of the very varied duties which fall to the lot of these Officers will be found in the first "Report on the Administration of the National Insurance Act," Part I., which has recently been published. The following extract from that Report will give some idea of the work done by the Women Inspectors, and the estimate which has been formed of it.
"Inasmuch as the Insurance Commission is the first Government Department in which a woman staff has been appointed from the outset, special mention may be made of one portion of the work carried out by the women inspectors during the past year. The enquiry held in the autumn by Mr Pope on the objections raised to the inclusion of married women outworkers within the provisions of Part I. of the Act necessitated much careful investigation among employers and outworkers in a large number of trades all over the country, such as tailoring, glove-making, lace manufacture, carding of hooks and eyes, pins and needles, buttons and fish-hooks at Birmingham, net-making at Bridport, chain-making at Cradley Heath, straw hat-making at Luton, chair-making, box-making, and boot, shoe, and hosiery manufacture. This investigation was undertaken by the women staff. The enquiry entailed hundreds of visits, both in the poorest parts of industrial towns and in remote country districts, and in interviews with employers and workers great tact and patience were required. Of the evidence given by the women inspectors, Mr Pope reports that they 'one and all gave evidence with extreme moderation, impartiality and discretion. The conspicuous fairness and the success with which they had collected information were frequently a matter of commendation from employers, who informed me that the enquiry had afforded them information about their own trades which years of work in it had not made known to them.'"
The General Post Office
This paper would not be complete without some reference to the large number—now nearly 3,000—of women clerks employed by the General Post Office, all of whom enter the service by open competition, either as girl clerks between sixteen and eighteen years of age or as women clerks between eighteen and twenty. Their duties are necessarily of a clerical nature, and in their earlier years at least they can hardly, perhaps, be included in the "higher grades." Yet the supervisory posts which become necessary wherever large numbers of workers are employed call for considerable administrative ability and are proportionately better remunerated. All women clerks are eligible for these posts, and indeed they are never filled in any other way.