TNAG-2688-FCO40-3890-Hong-Kong-Her-Majesty-s-Overseas-Civil-Service-(HMOCS)-poli-1993 — Page 10

-1993

10:55

MR GOODLAD

Policy

29 June 1993

0712703731

P.02

204

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SW1A 2AH

MD Cartland Esq

Chairman

The Association of HMOCS in Hong Kong

31st Floor

Revenue Tower

5 Gloucester Road

Wanchai

From The Minister of State

no

ced h M

Waters 3070

Hong Kong

Dear in Cartland.

Thank you for your letter of 4 June. I was glad of the opportunity to meet you and Mr Birch again during my recent visit to Hong Kong.

As I said at our meeting, and in the letter I handed to you, I am very grateful for the patience shown by HMOCS officers; and also for the constructive approach adopted by the Committee.

I appreciate the extent of feeling among members of the HMOCS that they should not have to wait any longer than absolutely necessary for a further announcement to be made on the package of benefits. As I stressed to you, we have taken this issue forward and considerable progress has been made over the last six months. There is no question of your members being "strung along". But we do still need time to resolve some important details relating to the schemes and to satisfy ourselves on certain legal and technical matters.

You point out that some of your members are considering pursuing their case through all possible channels in the UK regardless of any unwelcome publicity that this may generate. While it is of course up to your members to decide on how to advance their case, I think that the Committee has been very wise to advise against this course of action. As you say an open rift between your members and HMG would serve no useful purpose; indeed, it would almost certainly complicate matters and would, if anything, be more likely to delay rather than advance an announcement. Given that your members are now aware that there will be both a compensation scheme and a sterling pension protection scheme, as well as the right to early retirement with immediate payment of pension, I hope that they can continue to be patient and understand that we need time to agree the details of these schemes within Whitehall and complete the necessary drafting.