TNAG-0594-FCO40-740-Staffing-in-the-Dependent-Territories-in-the-1980s-1977 — Page 123

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hirties in Hong Kong would expect to be receiving about £16,000 a year (as opposed to his equivalent, a First Secretary in the Diplomatic Service on about £6,000 pa.).

Solutions

7.

Despite the problem of incompatibility of conditions of service I am engaged in an attempt to establish a system of reciprocal secondments between Hong Kong and Whitehall.

It is very likely that these problems can be overcome for short term secondment's than that they could for permanent appointments. The advantages for Hong Kong in giving a cadre of their administrative stream some Whitehall experience is obvious. It will have also the corresponding advantage in producing a cadre of Diplomatic Service officers with some experience in dependencies, although I believe that this will initially be of more use to them in dependent territories work inside. the office than in being posted as Governors and Chief Secretaries to the dependencies.

8. It now seems clear that in the longer term future the main source of Governors, Chief and Financial Secretaries for the 20 remaining jobs in the dependencies for which we will have to provide staff, is from the Diplomatic Service. I do not think that this is a bad thing. As I have suggested above, the stock of HMOCS officers is running dry. The job of Governor or Chief Secretary will have to be taken over by a Diplomatic Service officer with the appropriate back- ground. To an increasing extent the job of a colonial Governor requires the skills that are the normal equipment of a diplomat. In many cases he will be concerned with international negotiations over boundary and territorial disputes, the law of the sea and commercial negotiations of various sorts.

9.

It is clearly desirable that we should now start to build a cadre of officers within the Diplomatic Service with some experience in dependent territories. Ideally, we should have a series of First Secretaries having had the experience of being Chief Secretary in one of our small dependencies and therefore qualified at a later stage in their careers to head a department concerned with Dependent Territory work or to go to a dependency as Governor. It is essential that such a secondment should be regarded as part of a normal Diplomatic Service Career. An officer seconded to a dependency must (a) be a very good officer ie a normal DS officer with the capability to rise to the top; and (b) in no way regarded as having been shunted off the main line by such a secondment.

CONFIDENTIAL

STAFF IN CONFIDENCE

/LEGAL .