1
CONFIDENTIAL
PENSIONS POLICY
This paper sets out a proposal by the Minister of Overseas Development
that in 1971 HMG should assume greater responsibility for the cost of the
pensions of British officers who retire or have retired from the public services
of countries which were formerly British dependencies and who are either covered
by a Public Officers Agreement or could be regarded as coming within a POA if
there had been one. In various ways HMG already pays nearly £15m per year
out of a total annual cost of such pensions to these countries of about £29.5m.
It is now suggested that HMG should in most cases become fully responsible for
that portion of the cost which relates to service given before independence.
This would increase HMG's contribution to approximately £26.5m per year. The
repayment of loans made to some of the overseas countries to help them to pay
compensation and commuted pensions to these officers would also be affected.
BACKGROUND
2.
It has been a fundamental principle in HMG's relations with the overseas
countries concerned that responsibility for the payment of pensions to officers
in the public service remains with the governments that replace the British
administrations.
This is based on the thesis that the officers concerned were
indeed servants of the countries in which they were employed and their entitle- ment to pension derives from local legislation.
Effect has usually been given
to the principle by means of a Public Officers Agreement at the time of
independence.
3.
The Somalia Government defaulted in
There have been cases of default.
1963 when it broke off relations with the British Government. HMG has paid
the pensioners. Although relations with Somalia are restored there is no
prospect of Somalia resuming financial responsibility for the pensions and in
the current year a grant of £39,000 is being given from aid funds towards their
cost. The Zanzibar authorities defaulted after the 1964 uprising. HMG
initially paid the pensioners but when Zanzibar became part of Tanzania it
arranged for the Tanzania Government to assume responsibility for them in
CONFIDENTIAL