3
officers pensionable under Hong Kong legislation whose own pensions would
atinue to reflect the high level of local salaries.
Under
10. Un reflection, however, we feel bound to acknowledge that a Governor or Hong Kong serving under the terms of the Governors' Pension Schemc is in a fundamentally different position from those officers serving on the local pensionable establishment in that his pension as a. Governor is subject not to local Hong Kong legislation with benefits payable from local funds but to an intrinsically United Kingdom superannuation scheme financed by the British taxpayer and subject to normal UK practice. the terms of the Scheme as it stands at present the maximus pension payable is subject to a limitation based on two-thirds (not one half as mentioned in para 2 of Gealy's letter under reference although this may have bean mercly illustrative) or the salary level of a Permanent Secretary (Head of the Diplomatic Service) in the Home Civil Service and, given all these circumstances, i do not see how we could reasonably seek to exclude Governors of Hong Kong from this further involvement within the general concept of UK relativity. Having said that I think this is much more likely to remain a theoretical rather than a practical problem as I understand the changing pattern of overseas service makes it more likely that future Governors of Hong Kong will be appointed on secondment from the Diplomatic Service or on contract and in the case of DS secondment their notional pensioneble pay as Governor will be tied to the level of their substantive grade in the DB, although if seconded on leave without pay teras they will enjoy local conditions of service regarding salary etc.
11. The FCO will be writing to you separately about the case of Sir Peter Vamsbotham, the Governor Designate of Bermuda, who is expected to be appointed under the terms of the Governors' Tension Jchene on secondment from the US, and this appointment will obviously need to be considered in the light of the proposed introduction of the UAR system.
12. Attached at Annex A to this letter is a re-draft of Section 1.2 of the draft Scheme, which has been cleared with our Legal Adviser, and which covers the introduction of UCWH and the 'no worse off' clause referred to in paragraph 7 above. kew definitions now incluued are:-
equivalent UK salary'
'final pensionable emoluments'
i
'inducement element'
'pensionable emoluments'
13. Annex B reproduces new Section 4: Compensation for Governors for Loss of Office. This also has been cleared with our Legal Adviser.
140 Subject to any comments you may have on the above a consolidated draft taking account of re-numbering due to deletions of rules and including the above amendments will be re-submitted to cur Legal Adviser for clearance pending final arrangements for the laying of the Schere before Parliament. Hopefully we are now nearing the end of the trail and finalisation will be possible at an early date.
15. Finally I should also like to take this opportunity of clearing one or two quories on interpretation raised by the FCO regarding DS officers on secondment but pensionable under the GPS. Although they raise no new issues of principle likely to lead to further amendments to the Scheme I think it would be helprul if, for the avoidance of future doubt, the following points of interpretation could be cleared at this stage:-
a. In rule 3.14 (and similarly in 3.17) the salary to be taken in calculating the aggregated award of an officer who had DS service before Governor's
/service...
Page 120Page 121