21
DIE
CIVIL SERVICE DEPARTMENT
WHITEHALL LONDON SWIA 2AZ
Telephone Direct line 01 273 4198
Switchboard 01 273 3000
WE Quantrill Esq
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hong Kong and General Department LONDON SW1A 2AH
HKA 430/2
บ
Our Ref: HOA 382/384/02
RECEIVED
15 JUN 1979
DESK OF INDEX
-PA
Dear Quantrill
NO
Be
Mr green
as expected. Can
you
let me see
please with the file and any ideas you may have about where wego
next.
12 June 1979
121316
CONDITIONS OF SERVICE FOR GOVERNORS IN DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
You wrote to me on 20 March about certain conditions of service for Governors of Dependant Territories. I am sorry it has taken so long to let you have a reply, but the original went astray somewhere he re in the Division.
I can see that in a territory with limited resources a Governor might need to tread warily in the face of reluctance on the part of Ministers to fulfil the terms of his contract. But these obligations on the part of the Territory nevertheless remain real ones and we do not think it would be appropriate to expect HMG as a general rule to make good any shortfall. As you have said, the sums involved may be trifling, but in the area of allowances and reimbursement the terms and conditions applicable to the various categories of staff we have overseas are intricately bound up with one another; and in attempting to maintain a balance between these and other allowances my experience is that to depart from sound principles in one area inevitably builds up pressures in others often leading to expensive and sometimes ill conceived concessions.
I am sorry to have to send you a reply that I know you will find disappointing, but perhaps I can soften the blow by saying that we are always willing to look sympathetically at individual cases of Governors facing genuine hardship over their expenditure. But I think, and I hope on reflection you will agree, that it would be wrong to put further demands, however small, on Public Funds through a relaxation of the rules particularly when we see these as being generally fair and reasonable.
Yours sincerely
D MACKAY
Head of Home and Overseas
Allowances Division
20
दु