Enter
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HKA 431113
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2 0 MAY 1981
DESK OFFICER
PA
BBR i en
RD Clift Esq**
RESTRICTED AND IN CONFIDENCE
PLANTATION HOUSE,
ISLAND OF ST. HELENA,
SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN.
Hong Kong & General Department Foreign & Commonwealth Office London Sw1A 2AH
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34
FUTURE STAFFING IN DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
QF
1. Inevitably but regrettably the response from St Helena to the
paper circulated with your letter of 30 December 1980 presumably
-
to all Officers administering Governments is late. Not only did it not arrive here until the deadline that you had set for comments had been reached, but its arrival coincided with the interregnum before my own arrival. (Interestingly I was not given a sight of the paper during my briefing in London).
2. There is not, I think, much that need be said. All efforts to
make the staffing of senior posts in the Dependent Territories more
coherent and better planned are to be welcomed. But, if we are to achieve much, I hope it will not be long before Governors are encouraged to seek officers on "short-term assignments" - (recommendation (f) of the paper). I have deliberately avoided the additional epithet used in the paper
as I had always believed that such
-
"emergency"!
an option would always be open.
3. If we are to identify at an early stage those officers with an attitude and inclination for work in the Dependent Territories, we need to offer them some opportunities to undertake relevant assignments in the field. Ideally they might be used to cover absences on leave. But that would create other problems. Acting allowances are jealously
regarded and the need of the local administration to deploy its own officers more fully to test their merits and abilities must be given the highest priority. But there are a variety of tasks that local
administrations tend to set aside for want of sufficient officers.
These might provide just the chance to engage likely officers of a suitable rank: perhaps Second Secretaries or junior First Secretaries. Such things as the supervision of censuses or elections might also be suitable tasks or applied special research sometimes needs to be undertaken. My experience within the Diplomatic Service, however, suggests that POD's margins for training have already become too thin
to allow much, if any, scope for what I have in mind. But I should be delighted to devise some worthwhile projects here if I were to feel that