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included, on the advice of the ODA, the statement that "most Hong Kong pensioners continue to do reasonably well, certainly in comparison with their UK public counterparts." This statement was published in the official publication of
the Association of Expatriate Civil Servants and has generated a number of letters. The main purpose of Mr Blye's and Mr Watson's letters is to challenge this
statement.
5.
The ODA continue to assert that, generally, Hong Kong pensioners are indeed doing comparatively well. But the pensioners will never be convinced of this, and there may
indeed be individual cases of hardship, although we have no
evidence of this.
Supplementary Pension for Overseas Service
6. Mr Blye and Mr Watson also refer at length to the
inadequencies of the Supplementary Pension for Overseas Service (SPOS). As Lord Caithness will recall, SPOS is a payment made by HMG in addition to the basic pension of retired Hong Kong HMOCS members which is paid by Hong Kong
Government. SPOS does not guarantee the sterling value of
the basic pension. It merely ensures that the annual
pension increases granted after retirement will be no less than the pension increases awarded here to the UK public
sector. In other words it is intended to extend the
benefits of index-linked pensions to overseas pensioners.
1.
There is a long and complicated history to this issue.
SPOS was introduced under the Pensions (Increase) Act
1971. At that time the payment was made by calculating the sterling value of the basic pension using the exchange rate
as at 30 June each year. The effect of this, when there was
a steadily increasing rate of exchange, was that the
pensioner received a higher basic pension in sterling and
therefore a higher level of SPOs. However because of this
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