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2.
c) the funding arrangements with the British Council need clarification. Although the original PES allocation appears to have been split between the FCO and the Council we should seek the Council's pro rata share of the increased cost over original budget. This will give the Council a strong incentive to define their requirements more precisely and perhaps more modestly (para 10(a) of the submission suggests doubts about the space the Council needs). It is not yet clear that a new purpose-built building is the most effective accommodation for fee-paying ELT.
d) one way of bringing the capital cost close to the original budget and so reducing inroads into other parts of the OED programme would be to exclude the remaining UK-based staff flats; we shall need anyway to show that there is a particularly strong economic and operational case for their retention within the scheme.
These points can best be addressed through an early and rigorous review of the scheme by RFD and OED against the project assessment process used by the Treasury. forward without this review we risk at best a time wasting
If we put the scheme correspondence with the Treasury and at worst their finding reasons to call the project into question. will recall the bitter Treasury resistance to FCO pension
Hong Kong Department
proposals for HOMCS.
3. Paragraph 10(b) of Mr Bertram's minute implies that there is a clear risk of further increases in costs. these may be borne by the OPM but this needs careful examination
A proportion of and cannot be taken for granted. To the extent that it is not and the project is approved by the Treasury we shall need to look very carefully at other items in the FCO capital programme and then more widely at other areas of FCO budgets for offsetting savings.
Reso
RJ S Muir
hoc.THORP.003
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