CODE 18-77
Mr M Stone
Hong Kong Department/FCO
HMOCS
Poucy FILE
Reference..
2431/6
6
HAB 431/6
FROM: MRS C B JOHNSON
(GTN 7 7243 3265)
Fixe
7 Jow 1990
DATE: 12 June 1990
INDEX
HONG KONG: INCENTIVE SCHEME FOR MEMBERS OF HMOCS
My involvement. with colonial pensions matters dates back almost 30 years (not unbroken I might add) and in view of my long experience of compensation matters Dave Fish has asked me to let you have my thoughts on your minute of 23 May on this subject (not received here until 30 May by the way).
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2. If you look back at the papers from 1985 onwards you will find that а number of submissions were put forward in a disagreed form with ODA initially taking the line that there ought either to be a general scheme on traditional lines paid for by the SAR/Chinese or no scheme at all. However the way we have arrived at our present position is, I think, encapsulated in paragraphs 5-11 of Christopher Hum's submission of 22 October 1987 which should be read in conjunction with the Governor's telegram attached to that submission.
3. In order to defend our incentive payments it is I think necessary to go back some 40 years to put the situation in historical perspective as well as viewing the Hong Kong Public Service against the way other colonial public services have been treated in the past.
4.
In the immediate post war years the Colonial Office's recruitment pamphlets offered those joining the Colonial Service a full career in bringing the colonies into independence. The reality was the majority of those who did join at that time or later had to start second careers in their 30s and 40s. The White Paper produced in 1954 was in recognition of the events of the
immediate past and present eg the termination of the Palestine mandate, Mau Mau uprisings in Kenya, the emergencies in Malaya and Cyprus coupled with an uncertain future in other colonies where the pace towards independence was being pushed faster than many expatriates thought right. Colonial 306 sought to alleviate the worries of the expatriates at that time by setting out in paragraph 6 what they could expect HMG to negotiate for them if the territory in which they were serving went into independence.
5. Early compensation schemes varied quite considerably and not all offered compensation as a proportion of salary; some offered additional "compensatory" pensions. The first scheme to introduce the concept of payment. by instalment over a period of years rather than a lump sum at retirement was in Sierra Leone in 1960, although this arrangement did little to alter the fact that compensation schemes were а major incentive to HMOCS staff to leave at independence. The only scheme which "locked in" expatriates was in the Western Pacific where officers had to undertake to serve for a minimum of 10 years; they lost their pensions if they left earlier.
6. Cmnd 1193 of 1960 was in part a recognition that the days of the career colonial civil servant were drawing to a close and that the norm would become the short term contract officer who needed some form of financial inducement to serve overseas. The paper sets out what is
out what is essentially a government to government package from which the Bahamas, Hong Kong etc were excluded because
1.
SECRET