Note: We have @ Sit 9 m Tristram da Cunha as 2-m-C.
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are the normal equipment of a diplomat. In many cases he will be concerned with international negotiations over boundary and
territorial disputes, the law of the sea and commercial negotiations of various sorts.
9. It is clearly desirable that we should now start to build a cadre of officers within the Diplomatic Service with some recent experience in dependent territories. Ideally, we should have a series of First Secretaries DS Grades 5A, 5E or 6 who have had the experience of serving in a relatively, senior post in one of our small dependencies and therefore qualified at a later stage in their careers to head a department concerned with Dependent Territory work or to go to a dependency as Governor, Chief Secretary or Financial Secretary. The nature of the secondment would vary according to the posts available and the grade of DS officer available for secondment. For example, a Grade 7 (A or E) might go to the number two slot in almost any ministry in a small dependency, whereas a 5 or 6 would probably go as Chief Secretary or Financial Secretary. It is essential that such a secondment should be regarded as part of a normal Diplomatic Service career. An officer seconded to a dependency must (a) be a good officer, i.e. a normal DS officer with the capability to rise to near the top; and (b) in no way regarded as having been shunted off the main line by such a secondment.
10. I have now started an exercise to identify new vacancies for secondments in the dependent territories. That is to say, jobs in more junior positions than those that we normally fill by DS secondments. I hope to be able to present to Personnel Operations Department a list of vacancies that could be filled by the secondments of DS 7s and 6s. This project may fall down because of
There will be as there has often
the problem of acceptability.
-
been in the past resentment based on two counts:
(a) that secondee is taking away someone's job. This problem might be solved if the secondee is not a charge to the
dependency;
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