CONFIDENTIAL
(a) Whether the period over which the phasing of payments after the initial one will take place should span the whole of the officers' remaining career in service of the Hong Kong SAR Government public service or some lesser period.
It is for consideration whether an officer should receive
his maximum possible entitlement only if he continues in service until normal retirement age or, if a lesser phasing period is decided on, until the end of that period if
earlier.
(b) Whether the first and subsequent payments should accrue annually in equal proportions or whether there should be
some sort of ''loading''. For example, to increase the
benefit to those who are committed to continue in the
service of the SARG, the proportion of the total entitlement earned in each year could increase to reach a peak in the final year.
6. In order that HMG should be able to plan with a clear idea of the costs involved, we consider that it would be necessary to fix as the base for calculating payments, the
salary as at 1 January 1992 of the grade point in which the officer is serving on 30 June 1997 converted into sterling
at the average exchange rate for 1991. However the derived
base value could be adjusted annually to take account of the movement of the UK retail price index.
7.
It is important that there should be no misapprehension
that the arrangements to be made for HMOCS officers will in
anyway affect the duty of those officers to give their full loyalty to the HKG up to 30 June 1997 and to the government of the Hong Kong Speicial Administrative Region thereafter.
8.
We are ensuring that this statement is given a wide
distribution to those officers who have an interest in it.
We should be grateful to receive any written comments on the
proposal outlined above by 24 April. We then envisage that
REGACH/3
CONFIDENTIAL