TNAG-2437-FCO40-3539-Authority-for-retirement-of-civil-servants-in-Hong-Kong-prio-1992 — Page 90

Miss Brooks

Legal Advisers

CONFIDENTIAL HKA 233/7

Reference.

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Fu© (NEW)

AUTHORITY FOR RETIREMENT: LIMITED COMPENSATION SCHEME

1.

We corresponded about this subject a couple of months ago - I attach copies for ease of reference. I, should now like to bring you up to date on what our researchers have revealed and to seek you advice on matters.

2.

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As you can see from Mr Water's letter of 12 June, Hong Kong have been unable to find anything specifically approving this scheme. I have therefore gone through our files again. In summary, I do not believe that the Limited Compensation Scheme was ever specifically approved by Ministers. My researches have shown:

In 1985, at department level, it was envisaged that the papers would need to be put to the Secretary of State.

- Legal Advisers originally considered that an Order in Council would be necessary to implement the scheme. However they eventually concluded (I think because they found that Hong Kong would be paying for all elements of the scheme) that there was no need for this.

- With the new legal advice, there appears to have been no further interest shown by us that the Secretary of State should see the papers.

- The ODA, however, still wished to put the papers to their Minister . This was because they were concerned that anything done on the limited compensation scheme might have some knock- on effect for any general scheme or SPOS. However, there is no evidence on our files that the ODA ever consulted their Minister.

In June 1986 Hong Kong's Executive Council approved the scheme but there is nothing on the file to suggest that it was subsequently put to Ministers.

3.

The closest I have come to finding anything suggesting Ministerial endorsement is from a very general reference in the Secretary of State's minute to the Prime Minister of 5 March 1985 - ie well before detailed consideration of the scheme had been under-taken. In that minute the Secretary of State said, alia, "there is a good argument for proceeding now to devise

compensation arrangements for Hong Kong. They may need to be used in the fairly near future if the Hong Kong Government introduce further arrangements for localisation, for example in the senior ranks of the Administrative Service and the

inter

CODE 18-77

Ltd.comp.ADM

SLM

CONFIDENTIAL

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