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B
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peaks and troughs in the 10 year passport cycle; meets the brief for the building; and represents good value for money.
Background
3
Mr Goodlad accepted the recommendation in our submission
of 17 February that we should ask the Management Review Staff
to undertake a review of the staffing plans for the Consulate
General.
C
4.
In parallel with this, the Steering Committee looked at
ways to reduce the costs of the building based on the
preliminary sketch designs, since these exceeded the October
1991 PES budget figure for construction. Our proposed
remedies were detailed in Mr Bertram's submission of 31 March.
Mr Goodlad agreed that OED should seek the Treasury's approval for the project, provided that we could be satisfied that the
original investment case (for construction of a new building
on the site offered free by HKG) still stood. OED have
accordingly written to the Treasury (Mr Smith's letter of 7
June) to state our case. (Since then OED have provided various clarifications in response to Treasury queries).
5. The MRS Review highlighted a problem which we knew existed on the passport issuing side. Since all BN (0) passports will
be issued in the period 1992-1997 there will be marked peaks
of renewals in 2002-2007 and subsequent ten year intervals.
An early draft of the MRS report cast doubt on the building design brief. It questioned whether or not the right balance had been struck in estimating the space required for passport issuing, given the cyclical nature of the work. The draft
suggested that it might be more economic to dispense with an in-house passport facility and either to outhouse this function in rented premises, or operate a postal service to the Passport Agency in London.
sub.consgen28.NAT
JEB
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