CONFIDENTIAL
RN Organisation
11. The recommendation in paragraph 11 of Reference A was that the senior Captain at present in the appointment of Captain-in-Charge should be relieved at the conclusion of his tour of duty which ends in March 1978 by a junior Captain, at least until the move of Head- quarters British Forces from Victoria Barracks to HMS Tamar was complete. This will begin in January 1979 and be complete by March 1979. Paragraph 13 of Reference A subsequently argued that, if HMS Tamar remained a Naval establishment and following precedent elsewhere, a case existed for the Senior Naval Officer to remain a Captain.
12.
The detailed plans now drawn up for the co-location of Head- quarters British Forces and HMS Tamar provide no evidence of any increased workload on CAPIC once the move is completed although the naval base will be more heavily populated. The predominantly Army-staffed headquarters will operate as at present on the dir- ection of a one-star Chief of Staff with its day-to-day internal administration in the hands, again as at present, of a Camp Comm- andant. The interdependence of administrative resources antici- pated in paragraph 12 of Reference A will be achieved without increase to forecast total manpower requirements. To cope with planning meantime, a Lieutenant Commander has been appointed as works service project officer until new construction is complete and a second Lieutenant Commander has been appointed for the period January 1978 to July 1979 to oversee the actual move.
13. Although no insuperable problems are foreseen on the admin- istrative and support side on single or joint Service account once the move to HMS Tamar is complete, there is continuing Royal Navy concern that the complement of the Hong Kong Squadron is inadequate to cater for leave, sickness and training commitments; also that the target dates laid down to achieve the mixed manning policy required by the DCA will not be met due to inadequacy of locally enlisted men in the seaman branch to measure up to the required standard without extended training and further experience. It is anticipated that the former will be solved by marginal adjustments to Royal Navy complements, still within total DCA figures, to be confirmed during the forthcoming review of complement in September this year.
The latter is assessed at the moment as a matter of time which has required some extension of the Royal Navy ratings draft programme until locally enlisted seamen can be given full seagoing responsibilities.
14. These problems have been identified and steps are in hand to deal with them with DGNMT and C-in-C Fleet respectively. CAPIC, however, still has continuing reservations as to the effectiveness of the measures, put to MOD for information in Reference C, re- garding the mixed manning problem. The future prospect for mixed manning and the possible need at some time in the future to revert to the employment of exclusively UK crews could call into question the future requirement for an LEP Division which, from paragraph 13 of Reference A, would appear to have been a determining factor in the future rank of the SRNO Hong Kong.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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