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The long scale of gazetted offices in the Hong Kong Police rises from 7640 to $1600 a month covering a period of twenty years while the non-gazetted scale rises from $400 - $1200 a month covering a period of twenty-six yeers. There is therefore an over-lap between these ccrles over a very long range. More- over there is a gap of £120 (equal to three normal increments in both scales) between the maximum of the Inspector trade and the minimum of the Chief Inspector grade, whereas the.o de no such gap in the long scalo or the gazette rcccs. Thus an Inspector who has Boached his maximum (2960) would receive an immediate increase of $120 a month on promotion to Chief Inspector rade, but an increase of only 400 & nonth (which would be offset by the loss of free quarters, etc.) on promotion to gazetted rank. Only in the third year after promotion would the officer who chose promotion to gazetted rank begin to gain some advantage over the officer who chose promotion to Chief Inspector grade, and if he had in any case only a few years to serve, he would not enjoy any real advantage. In the case of an Inspector who had not reached the maximum of his grade (an officer, say, in his 18th year of service on a salary of $880 a month), the attraction of promotion to Chief Inspector grade would be still greater, for he would receive $1080 a month on promotion to that grade whereas if promoted to gazetted rank he would enter the new scale at only
960 a month.
I should have thought that a senior non-gazetted officer with only a few years of service left to him would not normally be a very suitable candidate for promotion to gazetted rank; but apparently in present circumstances Hong Kong wish to induce officers in this position to accept such promotion in preference to promotion to Chief Inspector grade. To do this it has been suggested that the principle should be adopted of crediting the promoted officer in the gazetted scale with half his service in the non-gazetted ranks. This would produce slightly more favourable entry points than the present arrangement by which the officer enters the new scale at the pearest point to his former salary plus $100 a month but the proposed plan A still produces anomalies. In order that further con-
sideration may be given to the problem, however, the Governor asks for advice as to practice elsewhere.
33853/12/48
W.A.
There is, so far as I can discover, no other Colonial Police Force in which similar conditions (as regards over-lapping of salary scales, etc.) to those in Hong long exist and in which, in consequence, such difficulties as those described in the Governor's despatch can arise. A formula has been adopted for adjusting salarics of Superintendents of Police promoted in West Africa from non-gazetted rank. This formula allows full credit in the new scale for not less than four years' and not more than eight years' service in non-gazetted renks but the adoption of such a rule would do nothing to solve Hong Kong's peculiar problem. It seems to me that this is quite insoluble while the wide gap between the Inspector's maximum ald the Chief Inspector's minimum continues. If the points in the Chief Inspector's scale were changed from
1,080, 81,120, $1,160, $1,200 to $1,020, $1,080, 1,140 and $1,200, the anomaly referred to at X above would be avoided. If, however, en Inspector is on a salary several points below the maximum of his scalc and yet has only a few years service before him, I do not see that any possible arrangement can make promotion to gazetted rank more attractive to him than promotion/