TNAG-2658-FCO40-3854-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-Consulate-General-1992 — Page 81

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HONG KONG : FUTURE BRITISH CONSULATE-GENERAL : INFORMATION

SERVICES

1. We are making progress on the Hong Kong Consulate-General project. I chaired a meeting of the Working Group on 13 November to consider a draft submission following a visit to Hong Kong by Mark Bertram's team last week. As a result of that visit, we are now in a position to recommend to Ministers the appointment of an Executive Project Manager in Hong Kong and a short list of Architects from whom to invite outline design proposals. Discussions during the visit with some of the future users of the building (eg, British Council, PSA) have enabled the team to refine the current schedule of Requirements, and OED have begun to write the Architects' design brief.

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I think, however, that more work is needed to define our requirements for the consular/passport areas of the building. Some questions were raised about our present assumptions by the team's visit to the Hong Kong Immigration Department. tour of the premises and discussions with Mr Lawerence Leung, Director of Immigration, suggested that: (a) even assuming that the Consulate will adopt the same working practices as HKID presently use, we may have over-estimated the space requirements; and (b) we may not have taken sufficent account of the effect of planned managerial initiatives (eg, with computer systems, records and postal applications) on the staffing, procedural and space requirements of the new building. It may not be practicable to consider adopting the new information technology systems which HKID propose to install, but we are on the verge of a major information technology initiative of our own in the DS, which may well have implications for our operating practices in the new Consulate- General. We also need to be sure that we have fully considered the kind of consular protection we shall need to provide to British passport holders in Hong Kong post-1997, and whether the Consulate General will also cover part of Southern China. The geographical Departments here will need to be involved in this latter point.

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CONFIDENTIAL

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