CONFIDENTIAL #
Ref. UGC/GEN/65/73 II
ANNEX D
D TO XCC(74) $2
14 March 1974
sir,
I have the honour to forward the Report of the Medical Sub-committee of the University & Polytechnic Grants Committee regarding the best method of providing the additional doctors and dentists recommended in the Medical Development Advisory Committee Report of July 1973.
The Medical Sub-committee's report deals with a difficult and complex subject and there may be points on which you would like further elucidation. If so I should be glad to help in any way possible.
There are three particular points to which I ought to draw attention. These are:
(a) the costings are only orders of costs and although we believe the comparative costs are valid at January 1974 levels the actual costs by the time any agreed scheme comes to be implemented are likely to be different;
(b) adherence to the time-table depends to a very considerable extent on staffing in P.W.D. No attempt has been made to evaluate this in detail but it seems likely that recruitment would need to be authorised very soon. This would obviously be a matter for discussions within Government with the Director of Public Works but it is perhaps desirable to emphasise that the time-table may depend more upon Government than on either University;
(c) in the last paragraph of the Report attention is drawn to the possibility of unspecified repercussions in CUHK. It seems likely that these will be in the general direction of lessening the distinctions between the two Universities and consequently to a diminution of the distinctions between the two secondary school streams. This is not a matter on which my committee can advise but is one which might perhaps be drawn to the attention of the Board of Education.
I should perhaps also draw attention to the point that the time-table envisaged operates from the point at which Government approval is given to the development proposed and not to the fixed date of 1982.
Finally I would request that this Report by the Medical Sub-committee, like other UPGC Reports, be kept confidential between Government and the Committee and not communicated to the Universities.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Sd. Sidney Gordon
Chairman
G. F. 323
The Hon.Colonial Secretary, Colonial Secretariat, Hong Kong.
CONFIDENTIAL #B