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a) approve the attached amendment to Section J (Retirement) of the Colonial Regulations which would apply to Hong Kong only.
b) approve that the Governor may delegate the authority to
retire officials given in this Regulation to the Chief Secretary
and the Secretary for the Civil Service.
A departmental Legal Adviser considers this to be necessary and
Hong Kong have agreed.
Background and Argument
3. After the signing of the Joint Declaration the Hong Kong
Government recognised that arrangements would need to be made to
retire certain civil servants early, due to the constitutional change which will take place in 1997. A Limited Compensation
Scheme was established in December 1987 which allowed for
certain pensionable officers to retire:
>>
if circumstances exist which make it unreasonable for the
officer to continue his service
in the interest of localisation
- to facilitate constitutional change
4.
in the interest of the development of the public service.
A covert element of the scheme was put into operation at the
same time for Special Branch officers. To date 16 officers have
been "overtly" retired and approximately 700 officers have been
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