TNAG-0592-FCO40-725-Inspection-of-Hong-Kong-and-Indian-Ocean-Department-1976 — Page 29

ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE

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I must say I am surprised by the first and second paragraphs of Mr Farrar's comment. I do not understand the logic of his paragraph 1 and if ODM only agreed that aid work should remain with HKD on the basis of it remaining a joint department I should be glad to be enlightened as to why we made a fuss about keeping the aid work. Perhaps we could discuss this on Mr Milton's return.

13 August 1976

JB Stewart Hong Kong Department

para.2

HONG KONG DEPARTMENT

1. I was unaware that the "ODM only agreed to aid work remaining in HKD on the basis that it would antinue to be part of the Dependent Territories Division"* I can only suppose of

that this point emerged in the exhange of letters between PPD Mr Farrar's and the ODM about returning the two ODM posts in HIODto minute of 12 August

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Eland House when Seychelles became independent. The department itself did not seek to retain the residual aid work on Hong Kong. It was the Home Inspector who concluded that this work should continue to be handled in what has since become HKD (part II, paragraph 19 of Mr Morgan's report). There was certainly no desire on the department's part to retain this work, but no other home could be found for it.

2. My point has been that it is not necessary for HKD to be classified as a joint department in order to be able to carry out the residual aid work on Hong Kong (my minute of 30 July) Moreover, I note from paragraph 1 of Mr Jasper's helpful minute of 6 July that, when joint departments were set up in 1971, it was agreed that the affairs of Hong Kong did not lend themselves to treatment in a joint department. It was then stated, and it is true today, that Hong Kong" receives virtually no aid and its affairs are handled separately from those of the other dependencies within the FCO" ie, it/Superintending Under-Secretaries who sit outside the Dependent Territories Division. It was only as a result of the then Hong Kong Department assuming responsibility for Seychelles, with its large aid programme, in late 1972, which resulted Marthe department's becoming a joint one the FCO and ODM. This being so, logic suggests that, with the loss of responsibility for Seychelles and a reversion to, in effect, the 1971 position, HKD should cease to be a joint department.

3. This said, I note from paragraph 6 of Mr Jasper's minute that he thinks the work of the General Section in G & GD would be facilitated if, on a merger of non-Gibraltar work of G & GD with HKD, the resilting department were to be a joint one. If this is

/ so

ADMINISTRATION IN CONFIDENCE

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