June 1993
MD Cartland Esq
Chairman
The Association of HMOCS in Hong Kong
31st Floor
Revenue Tower
5 Gloucester Road
Wanchai
Hong Kong
and
Thank you for your letter of 4 June. I was glad of the opportunity to meet with yourself and Mr Birch again during my recent visit to Hong Kong.
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As I said at our meeting, and in the letter I handed to you, I am very grateful for the patience shown by HMOCS officers; and also for the constructive approach adopted by the Committee.
Members of
I appreciate the extent of feeling among (HMOCS that they should not have to wait any longer than absolutely necessary for a further announcement to be made on the package of benefits. As I stressed to you, we have taken this issue forward and considerable progress has been made over the last six months. There is no question of your members being "strung along". But we do still need time to resolve some important details relating to the schemes and to satisfy ourselves on certain legal and technical matters.
You point out that some of your members are considering pursuing their case through all possible channels in the UK regardless of any unwelcome publicity that this may generate. While it is of course up to your members to decide on how to advance their case, I think that the Committee has been very wise to advise against this course of action. As you say an open rift between your members and HMG would serve no useful purpose; indeed, it would almost certainly complicate matters and would, if anything, be more likely to delay
cartland. 22 june/HMOCS/bp