CONFIDENTIAL
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
9.
and
Let me quote one. In March 1987, Mark Bertram and I convened a meeting to plan a new chancery in Tunis. He and I were fully agreed on the need to combine management and building but the administration insisted on disassociating the two. The result was a two year delay, the writing off of £150,000 - litigation that will pre-occupy my successor. Because of a bad decision in Whitehall, OED ended up renting a building that did not belong to the man who signed the contract, which had a demolition order on it and was to have a clover-leaf inter-change driven through the future Ambassador's office. (The post-mortem, on which I was not consulted, avoided every lesson.)
10. Here in Hong Kong we are following the same route. A committee chaired by an AUS but driven by OED architects is targetted solely on the building. In an entirely separate operation, in a different (slower) time-scale and involving different people, I am expected to crank up a revision of objectives (that has to be done - there is a consensus that the list I inherited is unsuitable). we then need to put the BTC into shape, recruit new LE staff, work out a plan of campaign and begin preparing for 1996. It can be done, but if it is not also coordinated in London and seen as a single package we shall waste a great deal of time and money and our short-comings studied by a large audience.
11. My considered advice is that this process should not be led by a committee chaired by an AUS preoccupied with day-to-day political issues. It is a straightforward management challenge. Responsibility should be given to one person in the administration, capable of coordinating all the various functions, and he should be supported by a secretary from HK Department (Mr Morris). They should produce a comprehensive brief for the project with costings.
12. I am not knocking OED. I have worked with them for many years and have great sympathy for the load they bear and the erratic demands they all too often face. I do not blame them for the bizarre situation in Hong Kong, where after so many years of direct responsibility, HMG has an estate situation that can best be described as a muddle. My recommendations are designed to draw a line on the past and start serious, coherent planning of staff and estate for 1996 and beyond. As the Irishman would say
to get to 1997 one shouldn't start from here, but there is time if the issues are seized now.
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE