TNAG-0364-FCO40-410-McKinsey-Report-on-strengthening-the-machinery-of-government-1973 — Page 49

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

M DA Clinton Esq CMG GM

Colonial Secretariat HONG KONG

LABT

REF.

NOKT

REP.

Telephone 01-

Your reference

Our reference

Date

наколи

1 March 1973

file

Dear Mike,

1. Thank you very much for your letter of 20 February and for sending the copies of the Report. I have read these with much interest and have passed them to Michael Wilford. I have also passed Appendix B of Volume 1 to the Overseas Police Adviser, Michael Macoun, to read. I hope this is alright?

2. We now have a much clearer idea of what the exercise is all about. The recommendations in Chapter 1 seem rather meagre (though I am sure the idea of freeing the DCS of some of his chores will be both welcome and necessary).

3. Chapter 2 is clearly where you start to get into difficulties about Management by Objectives. I am glad you have found the contacts in this country useful. I had a talk with Peter Lee the other day and gave him, I fear, rather a bad lunch. If you need more help you will doubtless let us know.

4. I can see that Chapter 3 is a difficult one in terms of both organisation and personalities. I have recently started a campaign on a relatively minor scale to get our personnel services to you on a rather more sensible basis. At the moment the administrators are reasonably well looked after. The rest is a mess. Responsibility, or lack of it, is spread between the Crown Agents, the ODA and the FCO, all of whom are trying to shuffle off as much responsibility as possible onto the others. I believe we must end up with a single home for all the personnel work that is still the responsibility of HMG. Only in this way can we achieve the two objectives that McKinseys also seem to have mapped out for you, sensible long term planning and efficient staff administration with a human face.

news

5. I take it that Chapter 4 is the framework of the McKinsey investigation but I thought it was going even further, to assess the implications of changes in the centralised Secretariat system for the decision taking process in ExCo and LegCo.

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