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SCS's speech at Oxford University Hong Kong Society

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Following is the speech by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the Annual Dinner of the Oxford University Hong Kong Society today (September 6):

Chairlady, Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to speak at the Annual Dinner of the Oxford University Hong Kong Society. Knowing that most of you are either students or alumni of a prestigious university who may look for civil service jobs after graduation, my natural instinct is to speak on my policy portfolio. This evening, I shall share with you the challenges of becoming an Administrative Officer (AO) in the Hong Kong SAR Government.

While the Oxford University is over 10,000 kilometres away from Hong Kong, it has a linkage with the AO grade in several ways. Let me first declare my interest : I had been an AO for 29 years before taking up the principal official position as the Secretary for the Civil Service this July. In the early days of my career when the AO Grade was staffed mainly by expatriate officers from the United Kingdom, many of the colleagues were from the Ox-bridge. Moreover, from 1970s up to 1996, the Oxford University offered a 9-month public administration programme for junior AOs. I was in fact the first batch and had a wonderful year in the Keble College in 1973-74. While things have changed nowadays, the AO Grade does share a strong common value with your university - elitism. We both take on the best talents and offer them the best training for taking up challenges in their career.

The Administrative Service is an elite cadre in the Government of the HKSAR. There are some 500 officers in the Administrative Service, out of the 180,000-strong civil service. I like to describe AOs as multi-skilled professional administrators who are posted around a wide variety of posts in 11 policy bureaux and some 30 departments. An AO can expect a change of postings in two to three years in the early stage of the career. These regular transfers enable the officers to receive wide exposure, acquire broad experience, develop multi-skills and learn to adapt to diverse requirements and circumstances.

One of the amazing experiences of being an AO is that you can move on to different jobs in different disciplines throughout your career but yet you still work for the same boss - Hong Kong SAR Government. As a new AO, you may work in a policy bureau and participate in the formulation of policies which affect millions of Hong Kong people. You may work in a department to assist in steering the delivery of services to the public. Or you may work as an Assistant District Officer, the number two post in the District Office to steer and coordinate the provision of government services at the district level and to oversee community building programmes. The breath of experience and exposure in AO jobs can hardly be matched by jobs for fresh graduates in the private sector. In my career as an AO in the past ten years, I had been the Permanent Representative of the Hong Kong Government in Geneva dealing with multilateral trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization, the Director of Home Affairs responsible for community building and district administration as well as the Secretary for Education and Manpower responsible for the development and well-being of over one million students. All these posts gave me both challenges and frustration but at the end of it all, a great deal of satisfaction for making a small contribution to the people of Hong Kong.

With a view to strengthening the governance of the Hong Kong SAR Government, the Chief Executive has introduced the Accountability System in Hong Kong since 1 July this year. There are speculations that the shine of the AO Grade is fading away because some Principal Officials have come from the private sector. As the Secretary for the Civil Service, I can assure you that these speculations are unfounded. At a macro level, it will only be in the interests of Hong Kong if the Government continues to bring in talented administrators for improving its operations. At the practical level, Principal Officials in the Government were virtually alone by themselves. They do not have deputies and advisers. They have to rely on the civil service, particularly AOs within it, for the necessary policy analysis and for the smooth implementation of policies. Let's look at three facts -

* out of the 14 Principal Officials, half of them, including myself, are from the AO Grade;

* out of the 16 Permanent Secretaries in policy bureaux which are the highest ranking civil service posts in Government, 15 are from the AO Grade; and

* within the 11 policy bureaux, over 90% of the directorate posts are filled by the AO Grade.

These facts speak for themselves : the AO Grade will continue to be an elite and leading grade in the Hong Kong SAR Government under the Accountability System.

The AO Grade offers a promising career prospect for its members. Apart from the attractive remuneration package, we provide continuous training to our colleagues. For instance, after satisfactory completion of the first three-year contract, officers will be sent to renowned universities for public administration programmes, including the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, Indiana University at Bloomington and Syracuse University. We attach a lot of importance in training our AOs to make them important assets of the Government.

If you are keen to take up the challenges and the hard work to serve our community, the Administrative Service is a job which you should actively consider. Competition for entry to the AO Grade has always been keen if not fierce. Last year, we received over 12,000 applications from Hong Kong and overseas. We selected some 300 candidates for interview after the two-part Common Recruitment Examination. After three rounds of interview, we offered appointments to only about 20 candidates.

Do think twice about what you are looking for in your career and seriously consider whether an AO job would meet your aspirations. In this regard, I wish to draw your attention to our new recruitment arrangements. If you are interested in the AO job, or indeed any civil service openings at graduate level, you would need to obtain a pass in Part I of the Common Recruitment Examination which covers Use of English, Use of Chinese and Aptitude Test. Watch out for our advertisement later this month on the next examination which will be held in November. We plan to invite applications to AO posts in January 2003 and only those candidates who have passed Part I of the Common Recruitment Examination can submit their applications by then.

Since 1997,we have had four new AO recruits from your university. One more tips for you : Take a look at the sample questions of our written test and the job description of the AO Grade at our Civil Service Bureau homepage.

I wish you all have a satisfying career. If you have any questions about the AO Grade or the civil service at large, I am happy to answer them.

End/Friday, September 6, 2002

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