CONFIDENTIAL
تے
VISIT OF DEPUTY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE
(SIR LESLIE MONSON)
TO HONG KONG, OCTOBER, 1969
CIVIL SERVICE
Note No. 13
Staff Relations
The preponderance of expatriate civil servants in the senior grades has created a number of problems in the field of staff relations. Expatriate civil servants believe, with some justification, that they receive fewer, and less valuable, "fringe benefits" (i.e. children's passages, education allowances, etc) than do members of the Diplomatic
Service or other HMOCS officers serving under OSAS terms.
This feeling of deprivation is heightened by the attitudes
of Chinese unofficial members of the Councils, and Chinese
Government officers, who oppose the principle of additional
remuneration for expatriates.
2.
ODM considered that Hong Kong salaries are high (and generous) and compensate for the lower fringe benefits. They
believe Hong Kong is quite capable of affording the cost of
improved benefits, and that the political arguments are not as
valid or as compelling in the case of Hong Kong as those which
have been held to justify the introduction of OSAS in other dependent territories. Sir John Field, the HMOCS Liaison
Officer attached to ODM, was to have visited Hong Kong for
discussions on these matters with the Expatriate Staff Associations and officials but he has now resigned his post.
3. To promote better relations between Government and staff
the Senior Civil Service Council was created in 1968.
As an
exercise in consultative machinery it has come in for some
criticism, notably from the Hong Kong Chinese Civil Servants'
Association; these criticisms have been attributed to "teething troubles" and are being ironed out. The Council's constitution
was recently renewed for a further year.
CONFIDENTIAL
/ Salary