TNAG-2099-FCO40-2988-HM-Overseas-Civil-Service-(HMOCS)-policy-matters-1990 — Page 77

PART I, SECTION III: 3.06.20

January we discussed the anxiety and insecurity felt by pensioners and their fears of delay or default in the payment of their pensions by overseas Governments. You again urged the view of the Association that the most effective safeguard and reassurance would be the assumption of direct responsibility by HM Government in the UK for payment of these pensions.

As I told you at our meeting, while HM Government has

consistently held to the view that overseas governments must continue to be responsible for the payment of the pensions of the officers they had employed, it has

also undertaken to safeguard these payments through

the conclusion of Public Officers' Agreements with the

countries concerned. I suggested that there was no

difference between us on the proposition that the

Pensioners Association was entitled to look to HM

Government to safeguard by one means or another the payment of these pensions and that this in fact had

been done.

Since our meeting, however, I have been giving further thought to the anxieties expressed to me by the

Association, and I have considered with my colleagues

whether there is any further statement which HMG could

make in order to give further reassurance

to overseas

pensioners.

HM Government recognise the concern of British overseas

pensioners for the security of pensions payable by independent Governments. They believe that the Public

Officers' Agreements made with these Governments are

and should continue to be the basic safeguard and that

pensioners can have confidence in HMG's determination to make this effective, particularly in view of the fact that they stepped in immediately in the only two

cases of default. I am, however, now authorised to

tell you that if for any reason it should so happen in

relation to the payment of a pension that a pensioner

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