STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
some dependencies' experience. It is not only for the reasons quoted above but also because, as I make it clear below, the senior posts in the dependencies must necessarily be staffed from Diplomatic Service officers after the present generation have retired, i.e.
in the early 1980s, that a DS cadre with that sort of experience is needed.
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Hong Kong must be regarded as at least a partial source of supply for some of the senior posts. It is, therefore, desirable that there be officers in Hong Kong who had had experience in their middle years of service outside Hong Kong. Were it not for one factor, I would have no hesitation in recommending that most governorships in the dependent territories could best be filled by secondees from Hong Kong. However, the very high level of salaries enjoyed by the Hong Kong Service and, because of low income tax and other fringe benefits, the very high net emoluments, makes it difficult to transfer a Hong Kong officer to another dependency (where his equivalent probably receives less than half of his net pay) unless some system of topping up is adopted.
Diplomatic Service Officers with Colonial Experience
5. I have recently gone through the service records of the HMOCS
and DS officers in Grades 4 and 5. There are about 40 officers
who will have enough service left in 1980 to make them available for such a posting. Only a very few have had that type of colonial experience which is relevant to the type of job that we are now considering. Most of our ex-HMOCS officers spent much of their colonial service as District Officers far removed from the operations of central government. I suggest that their subsequent diplomatic and bureaucratic experience which, of course, they share with all other members of the Service is almost as important when taking over a job as Governor or Chief Secretary as was their former colonial experience. For most of them the colonial experience was at least 10 years ago and has, I suggest, no more relevance to their suitability for work in the dependent territories in the late 1970s than their careers during the last 10 years.
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STAFF IN CONFIDENCE