TNAG-0535-FCO40-630-UK-aid-to-Hong-Kong-Polytechnic-and-technical-institutions-1976 — Page 60

CODE 18-77

Dr Pickard ··

C

Reference

64

I had a short word with you before you went away about the £900,000 which a former Minister promised for the Hong Kong Polytechnic and for technical institutions.

2. The subsequent history almost leads one to the view that the money having been promised every effort was made to ensure that it would not be spent.

3. It appears to have been agreed that the £400,000 for the technical institutes could be regarded as 4 separate schemes and that therefore they would not need to come back to the Projects Committee.

4. The £500,000 for the Polytechnic is different however and Mr King instructed a long time ago that this would have to go to the Committee.

5. For this purpose the Hong Kong Department have prepared the draft Submission at enclosure C in the folder below. This strikes me as a fairly elaborate effort to satisfy what are thought to be the requirements of the Projects Committee. For myself I would have thought that some thing less might have done. It is implied in the various discussions on the files that we need to know pretty well on just what books this money is going to be spent. This seems to me unreasonable and not to accord with the normal way in which projects are put to the Committee. (I appreciate that there are other arrangements for considering the presentation of books but this project is clearly outside them).

6.

*

One thing that will certainly be needed is some better indication than the Submission gives of the way in which the money is to be drawn down and over whať period.

7. I wonder whether the matter might not now be put to the Projects Committee somewhat formally recalling the earlier discussion and proposing to proceed on the basis that the equipment items in the list might be bought as and when they were required and available and that the balance of the money for the books might be spent at the rate of say £100,000 a year over the next 3 years.

8.

}

SI

You may be able to comment further however in the light of your knowledge of Hong Kong and your recent conversations with the Director of Education. If you are able to comment in such a way as now to assess the project generally and the proposals that are put forward for carrying it through it would simplify putting the matter back to Mr Williams.

9.

For my part however I feel pretty firmly that we must now bring decisions on the proposal to a conclusion.

EC Burr

2 October 1975

Gde

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