CODE 18-77
HKG 025/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY 10. 51
26 OCT 1978
Reference
DESK OFFICER
1 REGISTRY
INDEX
PA
Lction Take
CC:
Mr Porter Mr Fry
Mr Kirkness Mr Pearson Mr Hurrell
Llr Lynch
Mr Rae
Mr Stratton
No
copy to each
B
M. Clark
3
الله
70
Mr Glason
Mr Osborne Org.234/01
w/cncl.
3 8684
t
HK+ED
* Plu
1.
COUNTRY POLICY PAPERS
For many months past we have been striving, with the agreement of the Policy Board (and of the Chief Advisers) and of the Minister, to simplify and speed-up the production of Country Policy Papers in order to make them once again an effective element in our policy-forming machinery.
2.
As the attached copies of correspondence and minuting over the last couple of months show, this apparently single objective has become bogged down amongst inter-Departmental wrangling, in which wider issues of our relationship with the Treasury obtrude but show no signs of leading to resolution.
3.
W
In the meanwhile, the one relatively clear and single instruction which lies at the heart of the concept that CPPS should be much shorter and their preparation therefore much quicker stands unissued; the programme of work on old-style CPPS grinds ever further behind; and the Minister is still not associated with the approval of those which are approved, a situation with potential embarrassments.
25/10
4. It seems to me that some cutting of Gordian knots is needed, along the lines that we must at least issue now those instructions - above all about simplification which manifestly relate wholly or primarily to our own internal work here, even if we continue to have to wrangle inter-Departmentally about some other aspects.
5. I am calling a meeting for 3pm on Wednesday, 25 October, at which I hope as many as possible of both action and copy addresses can attend or be represented.
¿.W.F.
C W Fogarty
23 October 1978
Meeting attended.
amt
weck.
atterifel. Nai
Nai instructing
epp's sal. to issued next