HKK 9/3
Reference....
60
акка
1974
D & Fue
Pneu
Mrs Johnson
HONG KONG POLYTECHNIC
1. I have looked at Mr Burr's letter of 9 September to Mr O'Keeffe and I must confess that I do not entirely understand it.
2. However, I have had a thorough look at our 1973 and 1974 papers and, whilst we were sent a copy of Dr Pickard's report, it is quite obvious that no comments were sought on it and no action taken whatsoever. None of us were in HKIOD at the time so there is no way of finding out why.
3. I am not sure what Mr Burr means when he says "Dr Pickard's recommendations were not fulfilled at the time".
The only sections of Dr Pickard's report which were of real concern to us were those covering the Polytechnic and the Technical Institutes. Much of the section on the Polytechnic was devoted to staffing and this is the concern of TETOC who undertake the recruitment of technical education staff for Hong Kong. In paragraph 12 Dr Pickard briefly mentions the £0.5 million grant for the Polytechnic and recommends (a) the phasing of the expenditure and (b) "that approval should be given to the grant of £0.5 million". As I understand it, the purpose of Dr Pickard's visit to Hong Kong was to gather material to strengthen the Projects Committee submission which, I consider he did not do. In my view, what he recommended was the "end" but he omitted to provide us with the "means", which is what was really needed.
4. In chapter IV Dr Pickard mentions the Technical Institutes but the two paragraphs hardly form the basis of a Projects Committee submission!
5. Frankly I think Dr Pickard's report was disregarded since it was considered that it provided little or no material to strengthen the Projects Committee paper. It may be interesting to note that on 5 December last year, I passed a draft Projects Committee paper to Dr Pickard (Flag #) ; his comments are at Flag H Ultimately it was TETOC who helped me most, their comments, suggested amendments etc were invaluable. I am sure you will understand the inference! The problem which now arises is how do we tell Mr Burr that Dr Pickard's report was almost totally disregarded?
Vemon Wade-frown.
E V Wade-Brown
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
CODE 18-77
18 September 1975
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