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Organisations would apply to Home Office for approval as and if successful, would be able to nominate agreed
number of employees to spend a minimum of two years in UK on work
or work related training; would count, together with time spent
in HK, towards five years residence requirement for British
citizenship.
Although decision to include secondment scheme within 50,000
package rather than making it an extra, seems to have reduced
enthusiasm among companies for this scheme since first mooted in
Autumn, clear from officials' discussions that still some
interest. HKG and Governor personally opposed: see scheme as
taking places away from others not working for participating organisations who may be more deserving. If scheme goes ahead,
HKG ask that no more than 300 places should be available. Home
Secretary feels right that scheme should go ahead, and on modest
scale, though perhaps not as low as 300. To keep scheme.
manageable, should be limited to British organisations, or to
Hong Kong organisations with demonstrable British links. Final
decision on numbers needs to take account of likely degree of
interest from British public sector organisations, such as
Garrison.
Garrison
Defence Secretary has asked for 2,000 places for locally engaged
staff. With pressure on 50,000 places, Home Secretary sees real
difficulty about accommodating this request. Purpose of
citizenship scheme to keep key people in Hong Kong to 1997 and beyond. Garrison will be gone by 1997. Officials discussing
possible alternatives; Home Secretary will follow up separately
with Defence Secretary.
Presentation
Believe will need to be pretty open about operation of scheme,
and that proposals on eg numbers of places to be allocated to the different occupational groups, and weighting to be given different factors in points system, will have to be made
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.