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setting congenial and a useful management tool. Jakarta were sceptical not to say hostile. The Trade Commission in Hong Kong are not required to complete an objectives return under the present system, (why not?) but have produced a useful modification which suits their purposes. Kuala Lumpur are perhaps benevolently agnostic but do what is needed. At all posts I had useful discussions on the range of subjects involved with varying numbers of staff (and sometimes wives). [ was repeatedly urged that moro training was necessary in this field and In others. I will pursue separately to Training Department with more details. posts welcomed the prospect of an extension of the local budget scheme with some reservations principally about the ability of Administration Officers to cope. My response to this is to suggest that Heads of Mission and Heads of Chancery have at least as much to learn.
Information Technology
ΛΙΓ
4.
There is an astonishingly wide spread of experience of the introduction of Information Technology to back up commercial and consular operations. The use of computers largely for data retrieval in the Trade Commission Hong Kong seems to me exemplary and also indispensible if the Trade Commission is to offer a plausible service to exporters in a sophisticated environment. I suggested to the senior British Trade Commissioner (and cleared the point in principle with the Governor) that the Secretary of State might be encouraged to spend an hour at the Trade Commission when he next has a decent period of time at his disposal in Hong Kong. Tokyo (of course) are also doing well as are Singapore and (more surprisingly) Bahrain where the introduction of IT into the Commercial Section has transformed a long established locally engaged lay about into a valued member of staff. In Jakarta by contrast inferior hardware, lack of local support facilities and a series of disasters may put at risk any potential confidence in IT as a useful tool.
Estate matters
My
5.
I am minuting separately to OED on particular issues. visit to Tokyo coincided with an OED architect's visit to the post
The and we had a useful discussion on development of the compound. Ambassador and I both agreed that the scheme proposed was on the right lines but went somewhat too far in terms of density of housing. Tokyo must rate at the very top of our economically driven development schemes but even here there is a limit to the extent to which we should crowd the environment, especially when the interior scale of the new built houses and apartments must be substantially lower than older accommodation given up. In my view we have already committed a mistake in Kuala Lumpur in crowding too many planned new units of accommodation on to the site of the new Chancery offices. It is too late to remedy this decision. The
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