12/05/93
11:00
HKA 233/1
17 MAY 1993
NU.000
TOGE
Reference
From: D S FISH
138
A
FA
BISTRY Adion Taken
(Ext 3444 AH501)
Date: 12 May 1993
Mr P Owen.
Cabinet Office
HONG KONG: HMOCS
1.
The only comments I have relate to the covering minute and to the paragraph on SPOS.
2. The FCO have not proposed arrangements which fully maintain the salary differentials, as suggested by the last two sentences of the third paragraph of the covering note.
3.
4.
You may wish to consider the following alternatives:
"The Treasury note that remuneration in Hong Kong is roughly twice that in the United Kingdom and that any payment arrangements must take full account of this differential and produce protection only in line with that available to United Kingdom public servants. The FCO propose arrangements which follow more closely the schemes introduced elsewhere, but which offer protection at some 14% less than that sought by the HMOCS Association [and some 25% less than would be provided using current exchange rates]."
"inequitable".
+
On SPOS, paragraph 19 suggests that we have proposed the SPOS amendment to avoid the risk of Judicial Review. We have proposed it because we regard the current arrangements as difficult to defend. And in a letter of 24 February 1992 to the Secretary of State, the previous Chief Secretary described them as I propose the following amendment to paragraph 19:
entitlement. The FCO believe that the current regulations are inequitable and that, irrespective of the Current decisions
Hong Kong, there is મૈં possibility of legal challenge against them. Legal advice is that while legally we may be safe enough, there is an obvious lack of evenhandedness between providing for exchange rate gains but not losses'. The FCO propose that
;
D S FISH
que
Overseas Pensions Department
12 May 1993
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.