TNAG-0283-FCO40-319-Exchange-of-officers-between-government-of-Hong-Kong-and-UK--1970 — Page 45

CONFIDENTIAL

2 -

>

Colony's affairs for which the functional department carried responsibility. In our last talk you referred to the benefit your own officers would derive from secondment to the FCO in so far as it might remove feelings of isolation and so improve morale; but it seems to us that they might, for example, derive from a posting to one of the functional departments useful wider experience in a specialised field which could be applied in the Colony's interests on return to Hong Kong. There is perhaps another possibility. We might be able to arrange postings to certain Home Departments if you wished: we are usually expected to provide a certain number of replacements for staff seconded from Home Departments for service as Attachés.

4.

Of course, when it comes to considering actual postings, both of us will be very much circumscribed in the choice that we can offer by the whereabouts of vacancies and a host of other considerations that make the ideal placement of staff so difficult and time-consuming a task. And there can obviously be no guarante that we shall be able entirely to meet each other's wishes. But

if we both have a fair idea of what the other hopes to get out of these exchanges it might be possible to look ahead and earmark certain anticipated vacancies as being particularly suitable for filling on an exchange basis.

5. It would also be useful to know what Grades of officer you consider the exchanges might cover. You will be aware that we are very short of Grade 5A officers (roughly equivalent to adminis- trative or senior administrative officers in the age group thirty to forty); the situation is also difficult in Grade 7A and 8 (covering the age groups twenty-two to thirty) because a large proportion of these junior officers are on essential training of one sort and another. This means we could only agree to second officers to you in these Grades if we could be sure of getting bac in return officers of high quality from the Hong Kong Government Service who would be fully up to performing the duties of a desk officer in the FCO. The situation is a little better in our senior Executive Grades and we certainly need officers of these Grades with experience in Colonial administration to serve in the dependent territories Administration Division here. The question of exchanging officers in more senior posts above our Grade 5A level would, I imagine, arise very rarely and each case would need to be considered on its merits.

6.

Finally, I would like to take up your point about financial arrangements and the terms of service of such officers. You have suggested that officers might remain on their own terms of service; additionally the receiving Government would repay the lending Government at its own rate for the post occupied on a knock-for-knock basis and (possibly) with an occasional broad financial adjustment if things got too much out of balance. Certainly the first of these suggestions has much to commend it; if officers remain on their own terms of service it would get us over the difficulty that right across the board the salaries of your Administrative officers are higher than ours (e.g. the top of our 5A time-scale is £3,721 p.a. and of yours £4,470 p.a.).

CONFIDENTIAL

/7.

Page 45Page 46