TNAG-1981-FCO40-2814-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1989 — Page 70

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RESTRICTED

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

22/10

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Telephone 01-

233 4439

Your reference

R J F Hoare Esq

Private Secretary

1

Government House

HONG KONG

When 230/ | HE

Our reference

HKK 286/4

Date

NOV 1986

22 October 1986

Der Zahard

DONATION BY THE LATE SIR SHIU-KIN TANG

1.

I am sorry that despite our efforts to speed things up, progress in reaching decisions on the administrative arrangements for handling the late Sir SK Tang's generous donation has been painfully slow. However, following a recent meeting between ourselves and representatives of the British Council, I believe we are now at last making some progress.

2.

At our meeting the British Council representatives confirmed that they would be happy if asked to select, place and administer students who received scholarships funded by the donation. They could not however set up a Trust for the scheme without making a considerable charge.

3. As you will be able to see from the enclosed copy of a letter (which incidentally took almost two weeks to reach us) the Council have since suggested that, rather than establishing a Trust, they administer the donation directly by arranging for it to be paid into an interest-bearing "donation for special purposes" account. The interest would be held on the British Council budget in Hong Kong to fund the proposed scholarship scheme.

4.

This simplified alternative greatly appeals to us, not least because it would eliminate the costs of establishing a Trust which would inevitably eat into the capital. If, however, we proceed in this way,

it would be necessary for us to issue to the Council a clear directive to ensure that the donation was used in a way that would meet the late Sir SK Tang's wishes. We would wish this directive to cover both the scholarship and medical charity elements. (We read the final paragraph of Ms Boland's letter as an attempt to leave the latter aspect to us.)

5. We are therefore inclined to pursue withthe Council this cost-saving alternative, to which we understand from our legal advisers there would be no legal objections. However, before doing so we felt that we should let you know the way our plans were developing, in case you saw any advantage in informing Sir SK Tang's executors as courtesy of what is now proposed. assume that, as it was Sir SK's wish (your Teino 1377) that the

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