Mr Stone, HKD
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
From:
Paul Fifoot Legal Advisers
Date:
25 October 1990
сс Mr Paul, HKD
Mr Chamberlain
POSSIBLE TRANSFER INTO DIPLOMATIC SERVICE OF HMOCS
1. Mr Chamberlain has sent me a copy of Mr Dennis's minute to you of 23 October and the papers attached to it. With regard to Mr Walker's minute of 4 April, HMOCS does not, of course, comprise local members of the Hong Kong Civil Service. It is also more than questionable to refer to "poaching". Whatever our policy may be to encourage members of HMOCS to continue to serve the SARG Government, we must surely realise that there are not only those members of HMOCS who will be affected by constitutional change (a limited number), but others who for perfectly good reasons will not wish to continue in such service. Hong Kong is no different in this respect from any other territory in which there has been a fundamental constitutional change and our policy of encouraging colonial civil servants to remain to assist the successor regime has not, so far as I can recollect, been considered as an argument against assisting those who, as a result of constitutional change, have been unable, or felt themselves unable, to serve the successor. The two policies are not incompatible.
2. In this respect we should look at paragraphs 22 to 30 of the White Paper on Service with Overseas Governments (Cmnd 1193) and Appendix C to that White Paper. True, the White Paper is 30 years old, but it forms the revised basis for HMOCS and, even though, as I understand it, there is no longer an Overseas Resettlement Bureau, those who have to leave Hong Kong or feel that they cannot stay there may well have some belief in paragraph 6(5) of Colonial No 306 or otherwise put some reliance on Cmnd 1193). In short, the matter raised by Mr Dennis needs to take into account the underlying assumptions about resettlement of overseas officers set out in that White Paper.
of
Paul Fifoot
5PFAAO
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
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