POLACI
(b)
(c)
Method of payment of compensation might vary in light of different local conditions in each territory and would only be decided upon after full discussion with the staff association concerned and with the local Government's agreement.
Compensation schemes should provide an inducement to individual officers to serve so long as their services are required, eg by payment of compensation by instalments (usually up to six equal instalments with interest) or by an additional payment.
Officers would be entitled to retire with immediate payment of earned pension in a lump sum at time of retirement.
5. General schemes for compensation and retiring benefits have generally over the past thirty years followed these conditions and principles. Public Officers agreements between the UK and its former dependent territories have in addition ensured officers remaining in service, conditions of service and pensions no less favourable than before independence and that pensions would be paid outside the territory concerned with a guarantee that payments of pensions would produce the sterling equivalent at the rate of exchange in force on the relevant date. In some cases, HMG itself has taken over the responsibility of paying pensions.
6. In 1985 Sir Geoffrey Howe when Foreign Secretary, accepted that Hong Kong's position was not essentially different from that of other dependent territories in that HMG will cease to be responsible for Hong Kong in 1997 and the Secretary of State will cease to have responsibility for its public service. HMOCS officers have no advantage other than the prospect that they will be eligible to benefit from the conditions in the 1954 and 1961 White papers. They have no right to particular terms. However, it is reasonable for Hong Kong HMOCS members to expect provision to be made for them comparable to that made for HMOCS officers elsewhere.
7. So far the arrangments proposed or made for Hong Kong HMOCS from 1997 accord with the conditions and principles set out in the White papers and with previous practice only in two respects: the Sino-British Joint Declaration 1984 Annex I, Part IV