TNAG-0283-FCO40-319-Exchange-of-officers-between-government-of-Hong-Kong-and-UK--1970 — Page 51

W(B)L 51-7406

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

I

stet

Grades mentioned

require checking by Personnel Depts.

because a large proportion of these

junior officers are

essential training

sort

on

of one another.

peluding Covering

com

بست

mural, Consular, immigration and vsi, information,

adminstration and

insime caser

solitical work.

Top of 5A timescale requires checking and confirmation

5.

It wo

would

ld also be useful to know what

grades of officer you consider the exchanges might cover. If you envisage selecting

Administrative or Senior Administrative Officers in the age group 30-40 (i.e. roughly equivalent to our Grade 5A or First Secretary level) we would find it very difficult at

present to match your selection.

As you know, we are desperately short and under

We would strength in this grade, and might not be able to do any better then Grades 7A or 8, (Second and Third Secretary level) The situation is a little better in Grades 6 and 7E (Executive)

perform

range of dutie who would normally abroad a wide ra

be

gommercial officers, consuls

viee consule,

We certainly need in the DTAD officers of these grades with experience in Colonial administration. The question of exchanging officers in posts above Grade 5A and your equivalent time-scale would, we imagine, arise very rarely and could be met by special ad hoc arrangements.

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

additimally own terms of service, with the receiving Government/repaying 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 £3.712 p.a. and of yours £4,470 p.a.).

3721

7. I agree that we do not want to get bogged down in any doctrinaire argument about all this But your proposals would constitute a somewhat novel arrangement and I think they need careful examination, which we are instituting here. At this stage I would like to make two

points that seem to us to require further

detailed consideration :-

/ (1)