TNAG-0669-FCO40-818-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 54

Mr Murray

Mr Cortázzi

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29 SEP 1988

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HONG KONG: CALL ON MR CORTAZZI BY MR ALAN SCOTT, SECRETARY FOR HOUS ING

1.

Mr Cortazzi has agreed to see Mr Alan Scott, the Secretary for Housing in Hong Kong, at 11 am tomorrow, Thursday 8 September. Mr Scott was last in the Office in September 1976.

He was previously the Secretary for the Civil Service in Hong Kong. I believe that Mr Cortazzi may have met him in that capacity when he was in Hong Kong in December 1975 or later in May 1976.

2. Mr Scott's first appointment was to Fiji as an Administrative Officer in 1958. He was later appointed as Establishment Officer and Secretary to the Public Service Commission. He moved from Fiji to Hong Kong as a Senior Administrative Officer in 1972 when he took up the post of Secretary for the Civil Service. He occupied this post until April this year.

3. The department considered that as Secretary for the Civil Service Mr Scott was sometimes a little insensitive in his handling of staff problems. At the same time, we recognised that a fairly strong hand was needed in view of the problems that had built up within the Civil Service. These had partly arisen from the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the greater emphasis consequently placed on higher standards of public conduct.

4.

The department has had less to do with Mr Scott since he assumed the post of Secretary for Housing. It is not a glamorous post but it is one to which a good deal of importance is rightly attached since there is a continuing need to increase the stock of public housing and to improve the quality of it. Housing is not an area to which our Standing Committee has hitherto given much attention. It may be that we should remedy this omission and Mr Scott's visit to the Office this week - he is calling on the department before seeing Mr Cortazzi - will provide an opportunity to bring ourselves up to date on housing matters. They are also of some importance in terms of the UK political dimension to Hong Kong. Mr Robert Parry MP, who was in Hong Kong again during the first half of August, is reported in the Hong Kong press to have complained, not for the first time, about the housing situation. It will be surprising if he does not table further PQs on housing when the new session of Parliament begins. Another MP, Mr William Hamilton, has also recently brought housing matters to our attention as a result of a letter he has written to the Secretary of State about the position of housing estate caretakers in Hong Kong.

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/5. Mr Scott