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Reference
Compensation Scheme (LCS), though he was inclined to think that if our scheme fell into a compensation element and an inducement element it would be reasonable to offer the latter (ie the post-1997 payments) to any officers who, although benefiting from the LCS Section 2 (a) having been superseded, choose not to retire. (This seems to me another good reason for our not talking in terms of a compensation element payable in 1997 and an inducement element in following years: it would be perverse for officers superseded before 1997 to receive more than their more valued colleagues.) Could Mr Fifoot please consider this double compensation point?
6. Mr Waters said that Section 2 (a) had not yet been applied to anyone and was not likely to be applied in the next couple of years. Section 2(c) - for officers required to retire in the interest of localisation - had only been applied to about 12 officers who had reached the age of 57 and who had wished to continue until they were 60: we would shortly be receiving an appeal from one such officer. Under Section 2 (b) sensitive service- CSB envisaged about 100 members of the Administrative Service retiring between 1994 and 1997. Section 2 (d) would be used from about 1995 for officers Occupying posts for which they could not satisfy the JD/BL nationality (and right of abode?) restrictions. Section 2(e), the catch-all section, had not been used yet either.
7. I had not previously realised that the amount of compensation payable under our scheme would be higher for officers who opted for HKG's new pension scheme than for those on the old pension scheme (because the Hong Kong LCS uses two different tables). I suppose this is reasonable enough, though the Treasury might quibble. Presumably, the old pension scheme could involve a higher liability for SPOS and for any sterling safeguard, so what we lose on the swings we make up on the roundabouts. But it might be worth doing some calculations?
Early Retirement
8.
He thought the HMOCS Association would press for the right to retire in 1997 with immediate payment of pension, as a matter of principle rather than because many officers would want to avail of such a right. (Most of those who might otherwise have wished to do so will have been retired before 1997 under the LCS Section 2 (b) and Special Branch schemes.)
9.
For the consultations in May we shall need to be up on the facts here. As I understand it:
(a) under HKG's old pension scheme, officers retiring before 45 have no pension entitlement, but those who are given permission to retire between the ages of 45 and 55 will start to receive pension payments at age 55;
(b) under the new pension scheme officers with 10 years' service can retire when they wish and will start to receive pension payments at age 55.
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CONFIDENTIAL