TNAG-2437-FCO40-3539-Authority-for-retirement-of-civil-servants-in-Hong-Kong-prio-1992 — Page 45

CONFIDENTIAL

a) approve the attached amendment to Section J (Retirement) of the Colonial Regulations which would apply to Hong Kong only.

b) approve that the Governor may delegate the authority to

retire officials given in this Regulation to the Chief Secretary

and the Secretary for the Civil Service.

A departmental Legal Adviser considers this to be necessary and

Hong Kong have agreed.

Background and Argument

3. After the signing of the Joint Declaration the Hong Kong

Government recognised that arrangements would need to be made to

retire certain civil servants early, due to the constitutional change which will take place in 1997. A Limited Compensation

Scheme was established in December 1987 which allowed for

certain pensionable officers to retire:

>>

if circumstances exist which make it unreasonable for the

officer to continue his service

in the interest of localisation

- to facilitate constitutional change

4.

in the interest of the development of the public service.

A covert element of the scheme was put into operation at the

same time for Special Branch officers. To date 16 officers have

been "overtly" retired and approximately 700 officers have been

CONFIDENTIAL

Page 45Page 46