CO129-591-10 Military Administration 16-1-1945 - 28-3-1946 — Page 153

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Miss Ruston

With reference to our recent telephone conversation about the extent to which the establishment authorised by the Treasury for the Hong Kong Planning Unit has already been filled up, I attach a diagram giving the necessary information. From this you will see that the only definite vacancies are for an S.0.1 Finance and an S.0.1. Trade and Industry. have candidates in view for all the other vacancies.

We

2. No appointments have been made for the two temporary posts of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers but we have taken on Mr. H.E. Goldsmith on a part time basis to assist Mr. Rouse. Mr. Goldsmith is an architect and civil engineer who was formerly an Assistant Director of Public Works in Hong Kong. There is a proposal that he should be appointed full time instead of part time. I will refer to this in detail later when discussing the additional requirements of each department. We have at any rate a vacancy approved by Treasury for one temporary Engineer. No

3. To make the picture complete, we have separate Treasury authority for an S.0.2 and two S.0. 3s for the Police Training School in India. Of these the two S.0.3s (Messrs. Egg and Mackenzie) are at present with the Unit. No steps have yet been taken to recruit the S.0.2 pending Mr. Sansom's negotiations in India.

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I will now deal with the staff and requirements of the various departments of the Unit. Under Secretariat I have placed Mr. W.G. Wormal as an S.0.2 as there is no vacancy for an S.0.2 under Supplies. I have also included Captain Danby and Mr. E.R. Reeves, an Administrative Officer from Palestine. Captain Danby could handle publicity and Mr. Reeves personnel. With these reinforcements the Secretariat should be adequately staffed, except for planning for the Post Office, for which an additional S.0. 2 is required. Mr. Stokes and Mr. N.L. Smith have recently been making a preliminary survey of the work involved and I shall be putting up proposals for a postal planner shortly.

5. The P.W.D. staff urgently needs reinforcement, as they have now reached the stage of indenting for technical supplies and large numbers of detailed specifications have to be drawn up for the supplies approved by the Brett Working Party. Our recommendations are as follows:-

(i) that Mr. H.E. Goldsmith should be taken on full

time at a salary of £45 per month with retrospective effect from 1. 3. 45. He should be deemed to hold one of the temporary Engineer Adviser posts and I do not think reference to the Treasury is necessary except perhaps for the amount of his salary. He is too old to go to Hong Kong but has proved extremely useful to us here.

(ii) that the second temporary Engineer Adviser post

should be altered to a permanent post for an acting Chief Mechanical Engineer to be recruited from the Colonial Service. He would rank for military

purposes as an $.0. 3 and is urgently, required.

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(iii) that an additional S.0.2 be engaged for

architectural planning and specifications. The candidate we have in mind is Mr. D. Cuthbertson, an Architect who has had service in Malaya and Hong Kong

and