Miss Smith
Recruitment Section
PMD
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference..............................
HKA 233/1
FEE-PAID APPOINTMENT: HM OVERSEAS CIVIL SERVICE QUESTIONS
1. I should be grateful if you could consider offering a three-months appointment to Mr Paul Fifoot, a retired Legal Adviser, in order to provide advice to the Department on the arrangements to be made for the several hundered members of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS) working in the Hong Kong public service, who will lose the protection of the Secretary of State when British administration ends on 30 June 1997.
2.
This is a very complex subject, as doctrine has built up over the years with arrangements made for each Dependent Territory as it has attained independence. Much official time has been spent on the subject since the Joint Declaration was agreed with China in 1984. There have been several exchanges recently between the
Secretary of State and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We are on the point of opening consultations with HMOCS officers in Hong Kong on one aspect, a compensation scheme. We hope to reach agreement on the other main aspect, pensions safeguards, within two months, perhaps after Cabinet discussion, and want to hold consultations on that too before the end of June.
3.
The sums involved are high: up to £40 million for the Compensation Scheme and a possible contingent liability of several hundred million pounds for the pension safeguards. HMOCS officers will regard the schemes as inadequate, given past precedents, and may succeed in applying for judicial review. Parliamentary interest is also very likely. So we need the best possible advice in this critical period. Our departmental Legal Advisers have helped a great deal over recent months, but we are now in a new phase of the problem; they are already loaded extremely heavily and in any case do not have the necessary background to provide all that we need. Mr Fifoot worked on these subjects until quite recently and has unrivalled knowledge of them.
It is difficult to assess just how much work would be required, but I would estimate not more than 15 hours a week,
4.
CODE 18-77
KIPAIQ
CONFIDENTIAL
134