faxed on 10/12/93
via commcen
BY FAX
10 December 1993
Mr Francis Cheung
Immigration Department
7 Gloucester Road
Wan Chai
Hong Kong
RESTRICTED
b/u 20/1/94 to
DBJ
MK1) 444/2
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
RECH
13 DEC 1993
DESK OFFIC.
STRY
INDEX
Dear Francis,
TRANSFER OF UK RELATED FUNCTIONS AND RECORDS
42
-18)
26
1.
Thank you for your detailed and helpful letters of 8 July and 8 October. I am sorry that it has taken us so long to let you have a reply. We had to consult several departments and as you realize the issues involved are extremely complex.
2.
We are in general content with your proposed schedule for the transfer of records and functions. However we cannot yet sign up to a definite timetable with you. There are several reasons for this, the most important being that we do not yet know for sure when the new building for the Consulate General will be available for occupation. At the moment our best guess is that this will not be until the last quarter of 1996. Other considerations are that we do not know precisely how long, in advance of 1 July 1997, it would take to set up and put into operation the various passport and visa issuing functions given our finite staffing resources; we are looking at the detail of all this now, but will not be able to come to firm conclusions for some months. Our concern is that the transfer of records and functions should be well coordinated with staff taking up their appointments at the appropriate time. We have no previous experience of a transfer of such magnitude and a great deal of careful preparation will be needed.
3.
We considered your solution for segregating visa, passport and consular records but concluded that it did not quite meet our needs. As such an exercise would require a huge effort from HKID we felt that there was little advantage to be gained in asking you to start a new system of keeping records at this stage or of segregating the filing to date. We therefore decided that it would be easier for all concerned if your UK related visa, passport and consular records were transferred to the new British Consulate General as they stand (ie in microfilm form). This means that we would need to take over some of your lektrievers. Would this be possible? Or would we have to buy them from SFE Systems or someone else? Also could you confirm
cheu.let.NAT
SLM
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