AD
CODE 18-77
Mr Terry
ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE
Reference
6
IQTY I agree with Mr. Amiller that the argument gren in thee.
Streeton's letter of flag C probably still hold good
today. 07. 2/7 I have also flagged (E-H) varion
Mr Conyard o/r
HKK 431/1 нин
pps. of comment on "Visa Agency Fees ple
FUNCTIONS PERFORMED BY POSTS ON BEHALF OF THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT
1.
(3)
BEHALF
Mr Donnelly's undated minute to Mr Conyard refers. As requested by Mr Monk in his minute of 13 July I have done some research into the question of fees for visa work performed by posts on behalf of the Hong Kong Government.
2. The papers which cover this most comprehensively are the attached 1980 and 1981 GVV files and I have flagged all the relevant pages with 'reference here' flags. It appears from these papers that a similar costing exercise was initiated by Exchequer and Audit Dept. (E&AD) in December 1979 and as you can see from the files this generated a great deal of correspondence then. I have marked at Flag A MVD's submission to Mr Adams dated 19 September 1980 which includes the draft reply to E&AD. The statistics that were presented then are clearly out of date now but I would have thought it unlikely that the argument submitted then for refraining to charge the Hong Kong Govern- ment is any less valid now.
3. The FCO's argument for not recovering fees from the Hong Kong Government were eventually accepted by E&AD but Mr Griffiths pointed out in his minute of 4 Decmeber 1980 (Flag B) that there were still doubts about the validity of the FCO case. E&AD in fact posed a number of questions requiring further examination and this led to additional correspondence in 1981 finally resting with Mr Streeton's letter of 28 September 1981 to E&AD (Flag C). This reiterated the FCO's view that it would be undesirable to levy an agency charge on the Hong Kong Government. There does not appear to be a reply to this letter.
4. It is very difficult to answer the questions posed by Mr Donnelly in paragraphs 3 and 4 of his minute as we do not have any recent. figures to draw on. There was, however, a 6 month review of visas issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Government covering the period of 1 November 1980 to 30 April 1981 which revealed that the FCO issued 25,475 visas on their behalf. These details are contained at paragraph 3 of Annex C. A similar costing exercise was done in September 1980 (Flag D) to determine the potential number of FCO employed staff, and estimated expense, required to carry out EC work should the Hong Kong Government withdraw its facilities. If these numbers are still accurate it should be a relatively simple task for PPD to up-date the salary and allowance figures accordingly.
5. I hope the above will be of some use to you in your reply to Mr Donnelly.
Cvv HK 34871
зи
CHAAR SY NEGRIRY KO. 95
RECEIVED IN ARGISTRY, #0.75
-25 JUL 1983
PA
REGISTRY Action Taken
DESK OFFICER INDEX
21 July 1983
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нее
DR Miller
Migration & Visa Department
ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE