TNAG-2418-FCO40-3520-Hong-Kong-Her-Majesty-s-Overseas-Civil-Service-(HMOCS)-poli-1992 — Page 91

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CHIEF SECRETARY

PS/PUS

Sir J Coles

Mi Burns Mr Muir

POLICI

50

Mr Fisl, CDA Miss Brooks,

Legal Acuses

MrKerby. ODA

Mr Wye, Ryd. DSB k

Hong Kong: Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service

1.

Ministers have looked several times at arrangements for the members of HM Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS) serving in Hong Kong at the transfer of sovereignty in 1997. The Joint Declaration itself contains certain guarantees of continuity of career, salaries and pensions. In other colonies approaching independence, HMG have normally provided for two other elements, in line with commitments in the HMOCS White Papers of 1954 and 1960:

(a) compensation for loss of HMG's protection and of career prospects including the option of early retirement and early payment of pension; and

(b) sterling safeguards: a guarantee that pensions will be paid at a fixed rate to sterling.

2.

The question of our providing compensation, but without the option of early retirement, was agreed in principle between our predecessors in 1988. John Major, in his letter of 19 December 1988 to Geoffrey Howe, noted that PES handling of the funds involved (then estimated at between £10 and £20 million over the 10 years from 1997) could not be settled so

CONFIDENTIAL