CONFIDENTIAL
А сори
copy of this shd live
placed on
Departmental 52/69
RS 3/1
PA
MANN 8/4
31 March 1969
SELECTION OF SPECIFIC PROJECTS FOR
POSSIBLE ADDITIONAL EXPENDITURE OVERSEAS IN THE NON-MILITARY FIELD
8
the Polytechnic
1/4
In response to Departmental Circular ZP 3/17 of 14 August, 1968, a number of departments put forward outline schemes for additional expenditure on specific projects in the non-military field. These were acknowledged in Depart- mental Circular ZP 3/19 of 5 September, in which we said that they would be incorporated in a paper being prepared for con- sideration by the Permanent Under-Secretary's Steering Committee (now renamed the Planning Committee), before circulation to the Defence Review Working Party.
2. Virtually all the suggestions for projects were annexed to such a paper, although certain urgent schemes, such as those concerned with the Persian Gulf, had to be pursued separately. Briefly, the paper proposed that consideration of the projects should be deferred until the New Year, in order to see what progress had been made by then in the Overseas Information and Aid Estimates and in the Duncan Review Committee on Overseas Representation. This recommendation stemmed largely from the difficulties experienced by a number of departments (particularly in the information field) in reconciling, on the one hand, a request for ideas for increased expenditure and, on the other hand, an economy drive.
•
3. It has now been agreed that the exercise should rest until the middle of this year, since the present is not a propitious moment for putting forward a costly package proposal of schemes This does not mean that the exercise is dead, but it does mean that it would not be reasonable to ask departments (and, through them, posts overseas) to put more flesh on outline schemes. Departments which have been in touch with posts about particular projects may wish to consider telling them of the current delay. We would hope to give departments as long a period of warning as possible of the re-activation of the exercise.
4.
For the time being, therefore, any ideas for selected additional expenditure overseas will have to be processed through the normal FCO and Whitehall machinery.
DISTRIBUTION:
Under-Secretaries
Private Secretaries and
Heads of certain Departments
(B.H.C. Sykes) PLANNING STAFF
RE ARCHIVES N
- 3 APR 1963
CONFIDENTIAL
жекаль