TNAG-0825-FCO40-1033-Terms-of-service-of-Diplomatic-Service-officers-serving-in-D-1979 — Page 5

XEA 434/33

LAST

to

HKA 430/4 (9)

RESLIVED P

24 SEP 1979

М.

Mr Mercer

Mr Edwards

Miss Walker

C.C. Mr Quantrill, HKGD

DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OFFICERS SERVING IN DEPENDENT TERRITORIES

1.

As you know there have been a number of difficulties over the terms of employment of officers appointed as Governors of (or sometimes Advisers to) Dependent Territories. So far as Post allowances have been concerned, this has partly been because of a confusion over the respective rôles of HKGD and PSD. However in tidying up the cases of Messrs Strong and Davidson (who had each asked for review of his Entertainment Allowance) conversations I had with Mr Quantrill and other members of HKGD clarified these rôles. HKGD do not regard themselves as having authority to set rates of frais/allowances. They look to PSD to do this and of course to account to the Auditors for the propriety of our actions.

2. The present minute aims to set out rules which will over a period eliminate present allowances anomalies and consequent problems, the nature of which are as follows. A body of senior DS officers currently serving in Dependent Territories have been quoted emoluments comprising their proper salaries together with Post allowances originally calculated either for DS officers of the same grade but not on a frais basis or for Band 1 (in effect DS 5) officers. In the latter case, the allowance has been derived from a Band 1 budget but of course only a Band 1 salary contribution has been deducted from the budget, even though the officer concerned has been paid hiw own (much higher) salary and salary-derived benefits (higher DSA and transfer grant). But Entertainment Allowances have been pitched at a lower level than might (and usually would) have been paid to an officer in receipt of frais. In many instances, the Posts concerned had only ever been inspected by CSD; the full range of DS allowances had thus never been assessed and the Post allowances were derived from "ideal budgets" constructed for officers (but not Heads of Mission) serving on "normal" terms. In point of fact, few of the Governors are on anything like normal terms, in that the Territory meets many (often substantial) expenses which the allowance budgets provided for the officer to meet personally.

C.C. HKA 414/461/1

/The