Mr Hunter, PSD
LAGT
Kri
HKA 430/2
RECEIVED
JOISTRY HL 5:
22 FEB 1979
12
་
14
DESK
INDEX
PA
Action Take
Cc:
Mr Stratton
Mr Holmes, WIAD
Mine / P.P. 2/5
MID-TOUR LEAVE FOR THE GOVERNOR OF THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS
1. I have seen copies of Mr Holmes' and Mr Stratton's minutes of 13 February about annual leave for Mr Strong.
2. The question of Governors' terms of service is one on which we in HKGL have been working for some time. The present position on leave passages is not quite as set out by Mr Holmes. full cost of getting Governors to their territories on first
We pay the appointment, and of bringing them home at the end of their terms of office. In between, any journey that the Governor makes should normally be paid for by the local government under the terms of Colonial Regulation 8, which states that:-
3.
"A Governor is not entitled to any passage allowances from
United Kingdom funds when proceeding on, or returning from, leave of absence but, in the absence of any local provision to the contrary, he will receive the same leave passage privileges, paid from the funds of the territory, as senior officers in the public service."
The only occasion when we can pay for a Governor's passage other than at the beginning and end of his appointment, is if he is called home for consultations by the FCO. In practice, we have 30 arranged things that, in territories which are too poor (or where local Ministers are unwilling) to pay for Governors to take leave as often as we think they need it, they are called home for consultations regularly enough to provide them with the necessary breaks. Unfortunately, this only half solves the problem, since the present arrangements do not allow us to pay for the Governor's family to accompany him when he comes home for consultations.
4.
This system is particularly unfair to the very Governors who most need our support ie this in small, poor countries with difficult local governments. We have therefore embarked on an exercise to see whether we can do something to help Governors in such cases. I wrote to Governors on 3 October last year (copy of my letter attached) to ask them what aspects of their conditions of service they would like us to cover if we were able to get a limited amount of new money for this purpose. The replies have been slow in coming in, but we should soon be in a position to make a case to the CSD to incur a certain amount of additional expenditure under the Governors' Expenses subhead. I hope therefore that this will deal with the problem of Mr Strong's leave, and you may wish to delay separate action on his case for the time being.
15.