Tel. No.: Whitehall 1234.
NATIONAL
DISABLED
SCHEM
Your Reference 53723/48
Treasury Reference
128
263
TREASURY CHAMBERS,
GREAT GEORGE STREET,
LONDON, S.W.1.
copies sent to Accts. & D. 22
28th May,
1948
(259):
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Dear Talace,
a Mace,
We have spoken to-day about your letter of the 20th May regarding the Governor of Hong Kong's proposals for the new administrative scale. I pointed out that under these proposals, the total pensionable emoluments of an Administrative Officer would rise from £815 per annum at the end of the sixth year of his service to $1,095 at the end of the ninth year, that is to say, the individual would receive over three years a total increase of no less than £280. Further, the officer would be receiving total pensionable emoluments of £1,095 at the end of his ninth year of service, when under the proposals of the Salaries Commission he would not have reached that figure until the end of his twelfth year of service. You replied that the Governor's proposals did no more than advance by one year the position which would result from the adoption of the proposals of your Secretary of State as communicated to the Hong Kong Government. You felt, therefore, that it would be impossible to take exception to the Governor's proposals on the grounds that they involved too large an increase over too short a period of time, even though H.M.G. may not have fully realised the implications of its own proposals, which were designed to adjust the scale to take account of the non-acceptance of the recommendations of the Salaries Commission for large (£90 per annum) increments in the later years.
I felt, however, that since the Governor's proposals, even more than those of the Secretary of State, would accelerate is arrival at emoluments of £1,095 per annum, and might be taken as giving an individual officer higher emoluments than his experience would have merited in the eyes of the Salaries Commission, you should make sure that the Governor was aware of the effects of his proposals, if adopted. In particular, I enquired whether there would be an efficiency bar at the end of the eighth year of service, that is to say before the £135
W.I.J. Wallace, Esq.,
Colonial Office.
/increment