promotion to Chief Inspector grade unless there is & radical revision of the salary scales.
? Reply that there appears to be no other Colonial Police Force in which similar problems arise, since it is unusual for the salary scales of gazetted and non-gazetted anis to over-lap to the extent that they do in Hong Long. Explain that only in West Africa have arrangements been made which are at all relevan Describe these, pointing out that they would not help in solving the Hong Kong problem. Observe that the worst anomalies arise from the wide gap between the top of the Inspector's scale and the initial point of the Chief Inspector'e scale and suggest that these might be avoided by the modifications of the Chief Inspector's scale on the lines indicated above. Say that we see no objection to the adoption also of the half service arrangement suggested in paragraph 5 of 16, the credit due to an officer with an odd number of years service being adjusted by moving his incremental date forward by six months.
Alminter
23.10.40.
13
Apart from the point raised by Mr. Minter in regard to salary overlaps the difficulty in Hong Kong seems to arise from the fact that an Inspector may be promoted to the rank of Assistant Superintendent within a few years of his reaching the age of retirement. So far as I know, this is unlikely to happen in any other Colony, and broadly speaking the practice is to restrict promotion from the Inspectorate to the grade of Assistant Superintendent to younger men who are likely to advance further in the Service. The possibility of promotion to be Chief Inspector would normally only arise in the case of an older man whose prospects of promotion to the grade of Assistant Superintendent could probably be altogether disregarded.
With regard to the West African arrangements which is referred to on 33853/12/48 West Africa, this will not help Hong Kong, since it provides for the promotion of Inspectors who are on scales of salary very much inferior to the West African scales for Assistant Superintendents, and its object, therefore, is to meet a situation quite different from that in Hong Kong.
rent
We can, I think, only explain all this to Hong Kong and suggest that any anomaly arising from the adoption of a formula on the lines proposed in paragraph 5 of their despatch should be dealt with ad hoc. I doubt whether we should alter the Chief Inspector scale as suggested by Mr. Minter.
JE
Kuy
5th November, 1948.
Promotions would like to fumar in die
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the final decision-
9.11.48