TNAG-1115-FCO40-1387-Future-staffing-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1982 — Page 48

CODE 18-77

STAFF IN CONFIDENCE

G

Reference..

Ика 43/25

Mr McQuade (HKGD)

STAFFING OF DEPENDENT TERRITORIES

1.

draft or

I am sorry for the delay in commenting on your draft submission to the Chief Clerk below.

2.

One thing I have come to realise since your Department's paper was drafted last year is that there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the DS about dependent territories work. There has been virtually no response to general requests for volunteers to work in the dependent territories, and when I have asked individual officers whether they would be interested in a job as a dependent territory's Governor the answer has been almost always negative. People who started their work in HMOCS are often very emphatic about not wishing to return to that sort of work. People who have never done it before are nervous about starting, both because they fear it is something of a dead end but also because they are not sure that they can do the work which they see as very different from what they are used to. There have been one or two volunteers but not usually very enthusiastic ones.

3.

We have an exercise underway at present in POD to identify those people at First Secretary/Counsellor level who might be suitable candidates for dependent territory jobs. Our trawl has covered people who have had successful postings in small island countries, or who have a lot of Commonwealth experience as well as those who have had actual dependent territories experience at some stage in their career either overseas or in one of the dependent territories departments in London. Once we have prepared a suitable mailing list, we are intending to write to the people in question and spell out the attractions, as we see them, of dependent territories postings. I think we will in this way get a better response than we have had from less well-targetted circulars in the past: the fact that we have identified people as potential candidates will, I hope, persuade them to think a little more deeply about the possibility.

4.

You may like to mention this proposal in your submission to the Chief Clerk. Another possibility perhaps worth including in your paragraph 4 is that we should move away from our present policy of making dependent territories postings strictly for volunteers. I see no reason why we should not move towards the position of treating such posts on the same basis as other DS postings - ie we expect staff selected for them not to have a right of refusal unless they have very convincing reasons.

5.

I think however that it is going a bit far to suggest that we should 'earmark top quality people' for these slots and regard them as jobs for officers 'heading for the higher reaches of the Service' Certainly we ought to find good quality people, but they are jobs for competent mainstream officers, not for fliers.

11 May 1982

J.E. Auantrill

WE Quantrill

Personnel Operations Department