Assistance to colonies
IN 1966, there was an announcement in London that the United Kingdom Government was prepared to spend between 12 million pounds and 16 million pounds a year on assisting United Kingdom dependencies to recruit and retain the services of overseas administrators and technicians during the transition to and in the years after independence.
This was yet another illustration of the considerable efforts being made by Britain to provide technical assistance to her dependencies in a variety of ways, some of which are discussed in this review.
Facilities under the new scheme, was expected to have effect in most territories from April 1, 1961. For those territories which adopted the scheme, the United Kingdom would take over the inducement pay and allowances of overseas staff, so that while the local Government would continue to be responsible for the local rates of salary and other conditions of supplementary pay and allowances which prove for overseas officers.
The scheme will covered up to 21, 000 overseas civil servants.
It was designed primarily to assist developing countries to secure and retain experienced overseas staff and by making it possible for even the poorest territory to pay the market rate. It helped small as well as large countries and enhanced the security in employment of the officers themselves.
The scheme was to help remove from the field of political debate the problem of paying higher salaries to overseas officers than local staff. By relieving the Governments concerned of financial pressure, it enabled them to speed up economic and social development and also improved the conditions of local civil servants.
The scheme was in complementary to plans being vigorously pursued for the staffing of public services by local officers.
Back in the day, rapid development involved expanding public services and although the element of local people in the higher ranks was growing rapidly, the dependencies still required to recruit technical staff from the United Kingdom. The Colonial Office therefore continued to provide assistance by helping to find suitable people.
This was an important service, especially when certain types of skills were at a premium.
In 1959 the Colonial Office recruited 1083 men and women for service overseas and the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments and Administrations was somewhat similar in number.