07-DEC-1993 15:46
GED CROYDON
(t.marr.NATjoyce
081 888 4851
P.04
Consulate-General should be up and running well before the
transfer of sovereignty on 1 July 1997.
7. Para 8 of your letter under reference requested information on how this project will be managed on the ground in Hong Kong from our position as client. Our Project Manager, Swire Properties Projects Ltd, are a well established and experienced project management company based in Hong Kong. They have been given delegated authority for the majority of the PM activities indicated in Annex 3 of PCPU Guidance 33.
Swire are obliged to report regularly on progress and to anticipate and notify the Project Sponsor, at an early date, of any possible difficulties with recommendations for any necessary remedial action to rectify the situation. We have an effective working relationship with Swire; we frequently have daily contact via the telephone or fax and I have also visited Hong Kong for discussions with them and the Design team when need has arisen. I anticipate that these practices will continue throughout the project. The OED professional advisory team provide me with support and advice as necessary. There will be a need for continual site supervision during construction and suitably qualified site control staff, reporting to PM, will be resourced from within the existing consultant team.
8. Your letter of 22 July to Alan Wootton asked us to review the question of financial arrangements with the British Council. The background to the assumption that the British Council should not pay rent stems from the Ministerial decision in 1990 that collocation in a high quality building was the best way to demonstrate Britain's commitments to and interest in Hong Kong after 1997. We understood that Treasury acceptance of our total PES bid for the collocation of the Consulate-General and the British Council meant in practical terms that the capital cost of creating the British Council