TNAG-0597-FCO40-744-Future-of-Dependent-Territories-territorial-studies-1977 — Page 176

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there. On the other hand, the pace towards independence in that region

The ODM's idea of should relieve us of the need for any radical changes. setting up a DevDiv there could be judged by aid, not residual Colonial, criteria. Nor do I think that the appointment of a Colonial Adviser (Mr Posnett's paragraph 6) would be the best way in practice of securing the necessary expertise in the content and style of our communications with the Dependencies. I suspect that such shortcomings as there arenow are largely generated by correspondence at the deskofficer level and it would be impossibly cumbersome to channel all this via an adviser.

3. I would rather that we aimed to improve our performance on the following lines. We should preserve the essentials of the present organisation into the post-CPRS period. We should develop, as I believe we now can, the coordinating role of the General Section in HK&GD and keep the Staffing Unit close by, since administrative and personnel planning must go hand in hand. We should continue to draw, especially for Heads of Departments or Assistants, on the available resources of ex HMOCS or Colonial Office people in the DS and ODM, though it is also very important that they should have the necessary Whitehall skills. There are obvious problems here for Personnel Department and it is also relevant that HMOCS or Colonial Office experience is inevitably out of date and may not be much of a guide for the small isolated Colonies which are now our principal concern. We should therefore also try to increase our resources of expertise by bringing into DT Departments, at desk level, one or two HMOCS people on secondment from the Dependencies (not only Hong Kong). We have, for example, benefited greatly from the presence in WIAD of Mr Yaxley, who came to us from the post of Financial Secretary in the Solomon Islands but whose post is being abolished when he moves next month to a senior appointment in Hong Kong;

and before him of Mr Allen, another ex-Financial Secretary and now a Principal in ODM, who I think would

We make a very competent Head of one of the DT Departments in future. should claim a say in the appointment of Sir B Greatbatch's successor as Head of the Caribbean DevDiv. We should try and provide a sufficient margin of staffing, and travel money to allow continued touring of the Dependencies at all levels. And if I may say so without impertinence, it is a great help if the Ministers responsible for the Dependencies can themselves visit them personally. (It would be even better if there were only one Minister responsible for them.) Finally, I hope that we can dispel the impression elsewhere in the FCO, to which the Inspectors drew attention last year, that the work and therefore the staffing of the Dependent Territories Division are of inferior quality. As we lack the resources nowadays to meet fully our commitments to the Dependent Territories, eg in defence and internal security, it is the more important to provide good people for them in London and abroad. 4. I believe that if we can do these things despite economies and all the other claims on our resources, we should do so, in order to complete the job of decolonisation in a way which does credit to Britain's fine Colonial record.

15 April 1977

CONFIDENTIAL

HSH Stanley