TNAG-2269-FCO40-3268-Hong-Kong-Her-Majesty-s-Overseas-Civil-Service-(HMOCS)-poli-1991 — Page 70

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MISƆ MARSDEN

MR STONE

MS COGLIN

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FROM: R A Burns : DATE : 8 February 1991 CC. : PS/Lord Caithness

Mr McLaren

HMOCS : COMPENSATION ARRANGEMENTS

15

Mr Wiggham, the Secretary for the Civil Service, in an earlier briefing of the Minister had noted that while the HKG was current by focussing on improved efficiency and productivity, there was an underlying unease in the civil. service about the future. Government servants felt more vulnerable than the private sector: Lu Ping's recent remarks had been very damaging. There were four ways to reassure the public services;

(a) Housing there had been an enthusiastic response to HKG offers of help with house purchase.

- Egytarmas

**

(b) Nationality: -one third of the places offered by the British scheme could-be taken up by the public services. A recent visit:by Jeremy Page (Home Office) had been very helpful.

(C) Pensions: this was a source of great concern. 70% were on pensionable terms;

(d) Pay the major pay review had gone quite well. Out of some 340 grades there were barely three current disputes. The public services suffered wastage just like the private sector, it was worse in specialist fields.- But there had been a heartening response to recruitment of Hong Kongers in UK US Canada and now Australia:

-

mbayo sa c' pour group

When I called on Mr Wiggham: and. Mr Shipley on 4 February MWiggham: gave me further details of the very extensiveTM recent pay review for the public services the first service-wide review since the 1970's and inevitably the las before: 1997. There was some unhappiness and talk of industrial action which needed to be handled with a mixture of sympathy and firmness. The practice most groups had benefited from significant pay awards. Given the approaching recession and redundancies elsewhere in the private sector. there was unlikely to be much public. sympathy for industrialTM action by the public services. The most active complaints

were from those (P 108the police at Inspector level

and above) who had lost their differential over other groups and saw no prospect of retrieving the situation before 1997, after which pay prospects could only be expected to deteriorate.

AEDAES