TNAG-0592-FCO40-725-Inspection-of-Hong-Kong-and-Indian-Ocean-Department-1976 — Page 17

So the earlier recommendation

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W. Millen

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And HID Mund absorb the administrative, Legal & judicial stapuis sechin ar cellar tend Reneral Redan osse Phul freund!?

ADMINISTRATION, IN CONFIDENCE

KIM 21/10.

Dependent Territories Administrative, Legal

and Judicial Staffing

85. We undertook when reporting on Gibraltar and General department, and subsequently on Hong Kong and Indian Ocean department which we recommended should absorb the rump of Gibraltar and General department, to consider the possibility of transferring responsibility for dependent territories administrative, legal and judicial staffing into the FCO Personnel departments.

86. We have discussed the possibility with POD and find senior staff most reluctant to assume additional responsibilities for HMOCS and other personnel with completely different terms and conditions of service without a clearer idea of the extent of what would be involved. We have therefore asked the Head of section in Gibraltar and General department to prepare a paper detailing the staff still on his books and the extent of jobs that still have to be filled with a forecast of how the situation will develop over the next 2 or 3 years. Meanwhile we see no advantage in transferring the responsibility to the Personnel departments at the present time. PSD could absorb without additional staff the work of the DS 9 in Gibraltar and General department who looks after the terms and conditions of service of Governors, costs of their passages etc. The work is, however, closely associated with that of the rest of the section. They are concerned with staff matters for which they still need close and regular contact with the regional departments of the Dependent Territories Division. It is therefore preferable to leave them within the Division at present. We have, however, recommended in Part I of our report on WIAD that the situation should be looked at again in mid-1978. By then most of the Pacific territories will have become, or be becoming independent and the remaining HMOCS staff will be concentrated largely in Hong Kong. It may at that stage be possible to transfer whatever responsibilities remain into the Personnel departments. The DS 6 Head and remaining personnel staff of the section might then be absorbed as a unit - parallel to the DS 9/10 Management Unit and HCS and Specialist Grades Management Unit in POD. Such travel and allowances work as remained would pass to PSD.

28.

ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE

/Secretarial Branch