FIKA 436/4
RECEMO
2 2 MAY 1979
LA&T
Mr Hunter PSD
Bal al
PX
61
3
3
CONDITIONS OF SERVICE FOR DS PERSONNEL IN DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1.
The longer I spend in POD the more I become aware of the variety of arrangements that exist for paying salary and allowances and accommodating DS officers serving in the Dependent Territories. Each Dependent Territory is, to a certain extent, a law unto itself and arrangements within the Dependent Territories have grown up piecemeal.
2.
Illustrative of the kind of inconsistency we come across was the situation reported recently by the Inspectors when they visited Vila. One officer in grade 7E had been allowed air conditioning by the Treasury in his house, another had been refused it. As far as the Inspectors could see, the second house should have qualified under the normal DS/PSA terms.
3. I attach a list (prepared in your Department) of DS officers serving in Dependent Territories. As the cadre of HMOCS ages, SO we can expect in the future that we shall be asked to complement a larger number of jobs in the Dependent Territories. Indeed, two or
or so years ago the previous Head of Hong Kong and General Department, supported by his Under Secretary, argued that we ought to consciously create a cadre within the DS that could provide the complement for the Dependent Territories through the 1980s and later.
4.
Many of the Dependent Territories are small and isolated spots, offering few of the sorts of amenities that can be expected in other posts abroad. The posts are, furthermore, usually very small and that can increase the sense of isolation. To a very great extent we rely on volunteers for jobs in Dependent Territories. IT would, I think, be helpful to us and generally in the interests of the Service if we could arrange matters so that terms and conditions of service for DS officers seconded for Dependent Territory duty were not too far out of line with normal DS terms and, in cases where they were, ensure that the worse discrepancies were eradicated. Better still, of course, would be the complete harmonisation of DS and DT terms and conditions of service.
5. I do not underestimate the complexities and difficulties that would lay in the way of such a programme of harmonisation, but I do consider it important that we try to correct the present rather unsatisfactory situation.
16.
I have
ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE