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and territories concerned are shown at Annex D. The se responsibilities cover a large area of the work of all three Personnel departments, with whom the section work in close liaison, plus the processing of petitions to The Queen or the Secretary of State from members of HM Overseas Civil Service.
32. In addition to his role as Head of Section, Mr Hall is also HM Overseas Civil Service Liaison officer in which capacity he maintains contact with expatriate officers, especially members of HMOCS (Administrative and Professional) and holds a watching brief for their interests in consultation with the Overseas Manpower Division and Personnel. Services Executive of the Ministry of Overseas Development. Miss Daw assists him on establishment matters. One of the grade 9s is primarily concerned with recruitment, appointment, conditions of service and discipline of Administrative Officers; the other, Mr Embleton, is concerned with the terms and conditions of service of Governors, legal and judicial staff and the production of estimates for the Special Missions (Governors) vote subhead. The control of expenditure within the section is the respon- sibility of Mr Embleton working directly to Mr Hall. Internal Audit have recently reported well on the section. A summary of the results of their examination is attached at Annex E.
Workload
33. The work of the section, particularly that part concerned with recruiting, is to some extent seasonal and there are times when individual desks are extremely busy. Generally, however, the workload is not unduly heavy. The need for the existing staff depends to a large extent on the recruiting exercises which are of two types. That concerned with the recruiting of Permanent and Pensionable officers is an annual exercise involving correspondence with and visits to 23 universities. It requires study of the many applications from undergraduates (123 in 1975), interviewing likely candidates, selection, appointment etc of the successful candidates and takes up much of the time of one Grade 9 and the Grade 10 officer for the first
half of the year. The other, concerning contract officers and the corps of specialists, is less time consuming and more evenly spread.
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It will be seen from Annex E that 75 of the permanent and pensionable staff are recruited for Hong Kong. Of the remaining 27 posts three are in the Seychelles, due to become independent this year, and 12 in the Solomon Islands which are likely to become independent in 1977. Additionally, Hong Kong employs 19 of the 79 contract staff. If Hong Kong, which is financially independent and has its own representative office in London, were prepared to take on its own recruitment, corresponding directly with the main management departments on questions concerning
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12.
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