See folic 56
10 November 1992
HKA 233/6
Rt Hon Christopher Patten Government House
HONG KONG
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SW1A 2AH
Sir David Gillmore KCMG
The Permanent Under Secretary of State
все Lear Chuis,
HMOCS: POSTS IN OTHER DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
Thank you for your letter of 12 October.
54
I am pleased that you would like to pursue the extension to HMOCS officers of the opportunity to apply for inward transfer to the Diplomatic Service. This is something we much welcome. Our problem, however, is that we cannot increase the ceiling of places at each grade or include DS4, as you suggest. The scheme is designed to enable us to consider all inward transfer applications fairly and equally against a set of agreed criteria. We are not obliged to fill the places available at each grade if the standard of applications is not high enough (hence the "ceiling" rather than a "quota"); and the ceiling at each grade or its exclusion from the scheme is related to the operational needs of the Diplomatic Service, not the number of applications we receive. I can, however, promise you that we shall treat inward transfer applications from HMOCS officers in exactly the same way as those from home civil servants in the UK.
Any HMOCS officers wishing to take advantage of the inward transfer scheme should apply in writing to David Cox, Recruitment Section, Personnel Policy Department, FCO.
They should confirm that they have told their establishment officer of their application. We consider all applications in September-October of each year; and, before that, we approach establishment officers for copies of applicants' two or three most recent appraisal reports.
.../You