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understand (telecon Dinham/Morris) that there is an Association Committee meeting on 17 November. We would have no objection to your telling them in confidence provided you think the confidence would be respected - that we expect Mr Goodlad to write shortly confirming these points.
4.
We plan that Mr Goodlad's letter should also advise the Chairman that we are now finalising the technical details of the schemes and will hope to be able to make them available to the Association in advance of their AGM on 6 December. We envisage giving the Association about 3 weeks to consider the schemes in advance of consultations with them in Hong Kong. If we can finalise the schemes by the end of this month, this would allow consultations to be held in early January.
5.
The schemes themselves are largely complete, but we will need to clear them with Treasury officials who in turn will have to consult their solicitors. The Treasury will be aware of the urgency of this matter, but it may be optimistic to expect them to complete scrutiny of two complex schemes within two weeks.
In any event we will ensure that the Association have before them in advance of their AGM full descriptions of the schemes.
6.
There is a small but significant China angle. Though not strictly their business, there is a
business, there is a case for letting them know broadly what we are proposing to do, and of the possibility that there may initially be some public controversy. We have briefed them in the past on HMOCS, but more importantly you will recall in the context of the recent changes to the localisation policy that they asked for "no more surprises" on civil service issues. We would be interested in views from addressees on handling this aspect.
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