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4.3 4.4
3
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the Secretary of State. By means of such petitions, appeals may be made to the Secretary of State against disciplinary decisions made in the DT. The procedure for dealing with such petitions is the same as described in Chapter 9. (See also para 4.13.)
In disciplinary cases involving dismissals from the public service there are certain rights of appeal to the Secretary of State, depending on the constitution of each DT and Colonial Regulation 59.
It has been the policy of successive Secretaries of State to protect the interests of all officers in DTs in respect of their superannuation benefits earned by service in those Territories; and in particular to ensure through the supervision of the annual estimates and by other means that the interests in this respect of present and past officers are not damaged or prejudiced. For these reasons, whenever a DT has become independent, the Government of the newly independent country has been invited to enter into a Public Officers Agreement which is primarily designed to preserve the conditions of service and superannuation rights of serving and retired officers of the Territory. The enactment of the Overseas Pensions Act 1973 has enabled HMG to extend the pensions takeover offer to the Government of DTs approaching independence, who are invited to conclude a Public Officers' Pensions (POP) Agreement under which HMG assumes responsibility for eligible pensions in issue on independence and for the potential pensions of eligible officers who are serving at the time of independence. The need for the superannuation safeguards of a Public Officers Agreement therefore falls away and the preservation of conditions of service is incorporated in the POP Agreement.
4.3
INDIGENOUS PUBLIC SERVICE OFFICERS
Except in the circumstances described in para 4.2, the recruitment, appointment, direction and management, and their eventual superannuation, is entirely regulated by the Government of the DT. That Government may, however, from time to time, request advice or assistance from the FCO.
4.4
4.4.1
4.4.2
EXPATRIATL PUBLIC SERVICE OFFICERS
The home country of such officers is normally the United Kingdom, although some are employed and engaged from other Commonwealth countries, and even from foreign countries. They are, in general, officers holding offices to which appointment is subject to the approval of the Secretary of State or officers who, although not holding such an office, were selected for appointment by the Secretary of State, or in some way under the direct approval of the Secretary of State; but they are not invariably of this class. These officers can be in one of the four categories listed in paras 4.4.2 4.4.5.
Officers of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS) serve on a permanent and pensionable basis. HMOCS was set up in 1954 for the purpose of combining in one service expatriate
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