TNAG-2000-FCO40-2847-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-appointments--promotions-and-policy--1990 — Page 26

Mr Cox PPD

CONFIDENTIAL

A.

5931/3

1743 | WINAHL

MA3_010/f I Hussa/3

16

MEETING WITH MR SHIPLEY, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF CIVIL SERVICE BRANCH IN HONG KONG ON POSSIBLE ASSISTANCE TO HMOCS MEMBERS, ON THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER

1.

I undertook to give you a brief account of this meeting and to follow up some of the options we discussed. I also undertook to provide the attached draft reply to Mr MacIntyre's letter of 11 October which prompted our discussion of this subject.

2.

You will remember that I initially asked Mr Shipley what pressure there was likely to be on HMG to assist members of HMOCS in finding alternative employment in the run up to (and after) 1997. Mr Shipley said there was little pressure at present Mr McIntyre had been the first to raise the issue, but it was likely that others would wish to find out nearer to 1997 what HMG's offer of assistance would entail. Mr Shipley said that as Mr McIntyre had access to the papers Col 306 and Cmnd 1193 which promised this assistance, others in the Special Branch in particular, or in the rest of the Civil Service would be likely to see them. I mentioned that I had already spoken to Mr Waller the FCO's special adviser on Dependent Territories about this subject. Mr Waller had been of the opinion that the two white papers had offered assistance to HMOCS members but did not constitute an undertaking to absorb them into the UK Civil Service. Direct transfers to the FCO were certainly not implied. Mr Waller did however mention that he himself had been a former member of HMOCS who had initially transferred to the FCO on a temporary basis. He also knew of others (many years ago) who had sat the open competition and entered the Foreign Office this way.

3. I said that the ODA had told us that they were interested in members of HMOCS with professional qualifications ie lawyers, surveyors or accountants. Mr Shipley suggested that one way to assist members of HMOCS may be to ask the ODA to give them prior consideration for vacancies which arose. I said I would contact the ODA about this. Mr Shipley also mentioned the possibility of putting HMOCS members in contact with Government-run employment agencies. He recalled one he thought was called SER (I believe this may have been PER Professional and Executive Recruitment, which has now been privatised). I said I thought this may have been run by the Department of Employment/Manpower Services Commission. I undertook to find out if the Department of Employment had anything to offer on this front.

-

CONFIDENTIAL