Miss Brooks Legal Counsellor
HONG KONG HMOCS
FILE
96
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference..
нка 23311
66
1.
You may have seen from FCO telno 372 (copy attached for ease of reference) that in one of our recent meetings with the Treasury about the details of our proposed compensation/incentive (severance award) scheme for HMOCS officers, there was discussion about the position of certain police officers on contract terms, those appointed before 1 January 1985 who have the option to transfer to permanent and pensionable terms and then would be eligible for admission to HMOCS.
2. We should be grateful for your views on whether it would be legally possible to deny contract officers the right to membership of HMOCS, possibly in the context of some improvement in their contract terms, as this might reduce the overall costs of post-1997 arrangements for HMOCS officers. Although the Secretary of State has the right to approve or not to approve enrolment in HMOCS, would there be a risk of judicial review if he decided at this stage to deny the whole group of contract officers the right to HMOCS membership? Could he get away with it if we or offered them improved contract terms?
3.
We have considered two possible ways of denying contract officers the right of HMOCS membership. One possibility would be to tell officers in this category that they can choose between improved contract terms (eg, by HMG or HKG offering an increased gratuity on termination of contract) or continued right to apply for HMOCS membership. Alternatively, all relevant officts could be transferred
(without any choice in the matter) to improved contract terms which would include a statement informing the officer that he would no longer be eligible to join HMOCS. Do you consider that either of these options would be feasible please?
4. Could you also please advise whether, if we stick to the status quo, we could safely say that the HMOCS arrangements we are making will be applicable only from the date of the officer's enrolment in HMOCS (or his application for enrolment). Contract officers transferring to Hong Kong pensionable terms can "buy back" past years' pension entitlements, but we would prefer our compensation payments and any sterling safeguard of pension to be unaffected by any such buying back.
CODE 18-77
YETADZ TG
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CONFIDENTIAL