TNAG-2099-FCO40-2988-HM-Overseas-Civil-Service-(HMOCS)-policy-matters-1990 — Page 120

SECRET

From:

Paul Fifoot

Legal Advisers

Date:

11 April 1990

сс

Miss

Meys den?

Rnizly

Mr Paul, HKD

0/R

(without attachments):

PS/PUS

Mr McLaren

Mr Kerby, ODA Mr Fish, ODA

Mr Stone, HKD

HMOCS: COMPENSATION SCHEME FOR HONG KONG

1.

I spoke to you on the telephone recently about my concern over proposals for HMOCS in Hong Kong which I voiced in a "family solicitor" role rather than strictly as your Department's legal adviser. My concern is twofold:

(a)

(b)

first and substantively, if the proposals are published in anything like their present form, it is highly likely that they will be very ill-received and castigated as reneging on Colonial 306. This may have serious repercussions in Parliament (it certainly would have done so in the 1960s, but that generation of MPS has passed away) where our concern for Hong Kong Chinese, as demonstrated by the nationality package, may be contrasted with an abandonment of British Overseas Civil Servants to the SAR;

secondly and procedurally, are we satisfied that full and effective consideration has been given to the interests of the members of HMOCS? The problem is that, at this very late stage in the dismemberment of Empire and with the changes that have taken place following the amalgamation of the Colonial Office with the

Commonwealth Office and the latter's absorbtion into the Foreign Office, there is no under-secretary or department in the FCO or ODA who appears to have responsibility for HMOCS in the same way as in the Colonial/Commonwealth Office. There is certainly a need for some FCO/ODA department to concern itself with the interests of members of HMOCS in Hong Kong having regard to the expectations of the remaining colonial servants which were engendered by Colonial 306 (and later Cmnd 1193), and reinforced by past compensation schemes, in the face of arguments directed to the totally different issue of providing incentives to ensure continuity of administration in Hong Kong after 1997 as well as the financial arguments. In short there appears to have

SECRET

Page 120Page 121