selection
12 September 1991
CONFIDENTIAL
LiKD 340/7.
Foreign &
Commonwealth
Office
FILE.
13
Jeremy Page Esq
Head, Home Office Nationality Team
25th Floor
7 Gloucester Road
Wan Chai
HONG KONG
London SWŁA 2AH
Telephone: 071-270 2068
Dear Jeremy,
BNA (HK) 1990: APPROVED SECONDMENT SCHEME
1. As you will recall, Ministers agreed last Autumn that officials should review the operation of the Selection Scheme around September 1991 to see how beneficiaries of British links points (particularly those employed by "British Undertakings") were benefitting. If it appeared that the up to 35 points for British-linked employment were not tipping the balance sufficiently in favour of these applicants, Ministers agreed that they might look again at what else could be done for such people.
2.
From what we have seen here of the progress of the scheme to date (particularly the recent press reports alleging slow turnover) I wonder whether we are yet in a position to conduct such a review. From your knowledge of HKID's operations, do you think it would be possible to produce a computer profile of the General Occupational Class which revealed the success rate of beneficiaries of points for employment with a British Undertaking? If the answer is "not yet", at what stage in the proceedings do you judge that we would be in a position to do this?
3.
We have not in fact come under renewed pressure from British businesses to re-animate the Approved Secondment Scheme, (such pressure as we can expect in the next few weeks is more likely to focus on the slow pace of processing of applications) but I suspect it is only a matter of time before British businesses do return to the fray. At that stage we shall need to be able to say either:
(a) that there is no need for such a scheme, since employees of British-linked companies are benefitting disproportionately from the/ scheme; or
КІРАНМ
TG
CONFIDENTIAL