mightr
Mr. Stanley
STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
RI
--
"D IN
1 4 JUN 1977
12
1 4 JUN 1977
51
HKA 431/7
+
1. I can assure you that it is not any question of doctrine about Boards that makes us reluctant to see considered at a DTSAB as early as July 1977 DS candidates for appointment in the spring and summer of 1978. The ordinary DS Board must at some stage approve or perhaps a better phrase - "note with approval" the appointments of DS officers recommended for colonial appointments, but the DTSAB is of course the substantive Board for such appointments and certainly there is no thought in our minds that there should be a drill under which the DS Board normally preceded the DTSAB.
2. Our reluctance to go to the DTSAB so far ahead of time is purely practical. At present it is an unfortunate fact that a high proportion of DS moves can be planned only at short notice. One important reason for this is the overhang of the CPRS Review; there are others which I will not enumerate here. Our field of candidates for colonial posts is thus very difficult to discern with accuracy so far ahead of time, particularly given that our practice is to nominate for dependent territory appointments only officers who have been consulted about their willingness to go on such postings. Although, therefore, we could at any time produce a slate of officers who we thought would be suitable and be available for future DT appointments there would be a considerable chance that in the event we should be unable to deliver those numed: we should thus lose credibility with the DTSAB and have created for ourselves operational problems that could have been avoided. Accordingly, from my own point of view it would suit us best if the appointment of the next Governor of Gibraltar were done by a Paper Board, despite the unfortunate circumstance that two important Governorships have recently been settled likewise by Paper Boards. As I mentioned to you over the telephone, one technique that it seems to me would ameliorate any sense on the part of members of the DTSAB that they were being asked to deal with appointments too much on paper alone would be to mention in the papers that if any member of the Board felt that a meeting of the Board should be called this could easily be arranged.
iolo
10 June 1977
Itshame
H.B. Walker
Personnel Operations Department
M' Skuyout Dial,
JAM
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until after the summe
STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
scians.
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