CONFIDENTIAL
superintendents and above are expatriates, and the majority
of these officers are also HMOCS members. In all there are
363 police HMOCS members and a further 260 police officers
who still have the option to become HMOCS members. In the administrative service, about one quarter (99) of all
officers who occupy the middle and senior ranks of the Hong
Kong Government are HMOCS members. There are also some 40
judicial HMOCS members and some 280 others, mostly
professionals.
If large numbers of police officers were to
leave, the command structure of the Police Force would
collapse, and the Force would not be able to maintain law
and order. If there was a large scale departure of senior
civil servants, our ability to administer Hong Kong
effectively could be undermined.
It could also encourage
others to leave and have a wider effect on confidence in the
Joint Declaration.
new para.
division]
5. It is not possible to predict how many HMOCS officers might decide to leave if acceptable arrangements were not
made, or when they might do so. But the Governor considers
that there is a real risk that several hundred senior and
middle-ranking officers will leave unless adequate
arrangements for HMOCS are announced soon.
6.
The Joint Declaration contains good assurances about pay
and pensions (repeated in the Basic Law). The details
are at Annex B. These guarantee pay and conditions of
service "no less favourable than before" and payment of
pensions "on terms no less favourable than before". But the
value of the Hong Kong dollar is not fixed, and there is no
sterling safeguard or other special provision for HMOCS
members: indeed a separate provision indicates that
"privileged treatment for foreign nationals" will not be
maintained. Moreover there is no general confidence in the
civil service that these clauses of the Joint Declaration
will be honoured (or that HMG could or would enforce them).
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