HP 5/7 16
Mr Land
W
REGISTRY No. 51!
HV.K 5/12
Mr Shaw (DTGD K222)
п
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROVISION 1972/73
Your minute of ↑ March
1.
(مادر)
En
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3 PDTD are content with the allocations made to us by the Finance Dept for 1972/73, provided we get additional to the provision set out in Mr Burr's letter of 3 February a further £21,000 allocation for "regional" purposes (ie technical assistance visitors going to more than one of the Pacific territories). We have been in touch with Finance Dept and I gather that the omission of this in Mr Burr's letter was an oversight and it will be authorised. I think we had better have formal confirmation, however, that it is additional to our £231,000, ie our total will be £253,000.
2. We do not think that we are likely to want to go beyond the figures provided and we do not therefore think that we have a strong case for pleading for a dependent territories reserve administered by the Under-Secretary. (I understand also that this has never been the practice in the past.)
3. In any case, is not the problem which such a reserve would be designed to meet covered by para 3 of Mr Burr's letter? The figures in para 2 of his letter for the individual Pacific territories are not sancrosanct to those territories but only guidelines of our needs. We shall have £253,000 for the Pacific territories as a whole to divide amongst them as needs arise. This provides a good deal of elasticity. Additionally, according to Mr Burr's letter, the figure allocated to each of the dependent territories departments are also guidelines and Heads of those departments "will be free to re-allocate among themselves... in the light of current requirements". Assuming that the other dependent territories departments like mine have been generously catered for in Mr Burr's estimates, this further elasti- city should make a reserve unnecessary. If this is the position would not it be enough for us to consult together, say half way through the year, to see how expenditure and
/estimated
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