Management and Personnel Office
Alencon Link Basing.toke Hants RG 21 1JE
R G Pettitt Esq
Telephone 0256 29222)
GTN 2003
Overseas Developmat Administration
Overseas Manpower
Abercrombie House Baglesham Road Mrunt Kilbride CONGOW_G75 8RA
epartment
Dear Gart
MaGreen
Mr Duncan has
oblige. I
Your reference OMD 208/217/01
@ 1416
Our reference SEC 120/418/01
SEC 19/311/01
Date
14 June 1982
AGE CONCESSIONS
I hope you will forgive me for returning again so soon to this subject which we agonised over, together with MOD, last year.
2.
In the light of the White Paper on Administrative Forms in Government (Cnd 8504) wo have begun a review of all the Commission's forms. Priority attention is being given to those forms which are sent out to the public in large numbers, and these include the General Information for Candidates leaflet and our competition memoranda.
3. As you no doubt know, one of the objectives of the forms review is to produce shorter and more intelligible forms. One of the most obscure pieces of prose in the GI leaflet (copy enclosed, see page 3) is that explaining the age modifications for those with service in the HMOCS or with developing countries or British dependencies. The same passage is included in some competition memoranda,
4.
For various reasons, a completely revised edition of the GI leaflet will be required by 1 January 1983 and we shall probably omit the Age Limits section altogether and leave the substance to be included, if necessary, in the relevant competition memoranda. The question is, how much of the present substance really is necessary?
5. Because of MOD's arguments we agreed last year (my letter of 29 9 81) to maintain the age concessions for "at least the next few years". However, you intimated in your letter of 18 11 81 that you would have gone along with one original proposals as they affected members of MOCs. I have no wish to return to the charge on the HM Forces concessions so quickly, but I wonder whether you would be prepared to acce to our abandoning the age concessions for HMOCS etc unilaterally? As noted in our previous correspondence, they are rarely invoked in practice, and their raison d'etre is diminishing as we are progressively relaxing or abandoning our general age limits.
For the Science Group, which you told us earlier was an area of particular interest to you, we hope to abolish age limits in time for the 1983 recruitment campaign.