territories umber of
f in junior ngdom or d reasons. latter. Its Secretary territories need for taken by Office and
te to All
ents from employed. Secretary
r careers,
erritories
e profes. Colonial
e largest
ce.
we are ss the
ere were
regula. transter. ablished.
bugh the or filling cen shle
t better
on
?
PUBLIC SERVICE IN U.K. DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
521
facilitated by the normal practice, in fixing an officer's seniority and salary after transfer, of giving him credit for his previous service in the grade.
Reorganisation in 1954: Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service
57
In 1954, political developments taking place in overseas territories ked to a fundamental reorganisation of the Colonial Service. It was hased upon three premises:
(a) that experienced officers would still be needed in overseas territories when, as a result of constitutional changes, the United Kingdom Government was no longer able to exercise effective control over their tenure and conditions of employment;
(b) that the United Kingdom Government had a special obligation towards those officers of the Colonial Service holding their posts as a result of having been selected for them by the Secretary of State;
(c) that those officers were entitled to expect the observance of certain conditions; briefly that their terms of service, pension rights and eligibility for promotion or transfer would be safeguarded; that if their careers were terminated, they would be given adequate notice; that the United Kingdom Government would then endeavour to find them alternative employment 58; and that on premature retire- ment they should be compensated by the employing government. The United Kingdom Government therefore announced their intention, when a territory attained self-government, of ensuring the observance of these conditions by means of a formal agreement with the government of the territory concerned. A list was compiled of the serving officers to whom the arrangements were regarded as applying, and those on the list became Her Majesty's Overseas 80 Civil Service; new recruits could be accepted on the footing that they would be members of this service. The various occupational Unified Services ceased to exist, though in practice their members continued to be regarded as the several branches of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service. That title being inappropriate for Judges and magistrates, it was decided that they should be referred to collectively as Her Majesty's Overseas Judiciary, remaining, nevertheless, entitled to the rights and privileges attached to Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service.
11 See Colonial No. 306.
"Owing to the rapid shrinkage of the overseas service, coupled with the preference of a large proportion of officers to retire with compensation, the question of alternative employment has never had much significance in practice. "These agreements and constitutional safeguards for serving officers are referred to
in greater detail in Chap. 6, pp. 287-288, supra.
"Initially Oversea."