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▼ APPLICATION OF NEW SCALES TO SERVING OFFICERS,
23.
The general effect of the introduction of the new salary scales is to reduce the salaries which officers at present serving on time scales may expect to receive en promotion to higher grades and the view has been put forward on behalf of officers that those already in the service should retain the right to promotion on the salaries previously in force. The
Secretary of State, has, however, definitely ruled
against this.
24.
The following is extracted from his despatch
of the 12th of June, 1937.
"It is proper that in a Service, which purports to provide a permanent career officers should be able to look forward to reasonable prospects of promotion. But the obligations of the Government do not extend beyond the provision of such prospects (which it may be recalled in the case of officers in the Colonial Service are not confined to a single Colony) and no officer can be held to have claim as of right to the maintenance of any particular salary scale for a post which he does not hold. There are indeed objections of principle to recognising any such claim, and obvious administrative difficulties in the way of retaining for an indefinite period two salary scales for officers performing identical functions, the more favourable being reserved for officers whose only claim to preferential treatment is that they were in the Hong Kong Service when the change was made."
In that despatch, however, the Secretary of State recognised that there might be individual cases in which the reduction in promotion prospects was so great or would give rise to such anomalies that some special treatment would be necessary. One of the great difficulties is that by accepting the new scales serving officers will lose the benefit of paragraph 2 (c) (i) of the Pensions Ordinance, as explained in
section I above. This can, however, be avoided in
suitable cases by continuing for serving officers
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