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Following is the speech on Ethical Challenges for Business and Government Leaders by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the Leadership Forum 2002 today(December 12):
Chief Executive, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the Civil Service Bureau and the Independent Commission Against Corruption, I extend a warm welcome to you all. Thank you for taking time to join the 2002 Ethical Leadership Forum.
We are honoured to have the Chief Executive with us today. We are particularly grateful that he has agreed to share his thoughts with us on this important subject of integrity management.
We are also indebted to the six chambers of commerce for their sterling support. The signing ceremony just now has a special meaning. It highlights the common commitment and partnership that bind the Government and the private sector in promoting ethical practices in Hong Kong.
Our common target is clear. We must continue to work together to foster and maintain a culture of honesty and integrity in the work place, for the betterment of Hong Kong.
Three distinguished speakers have accepted our invitation to address the gathering today. They will take us through some of the challenges that lie ahead. I am sure that, at the end of the forum, we will all have a clearer idea about the way forward, including how best to keep our integrity management efforts relevant to today's changing requirements.
Over 800 of you have joined us from the business and public sectors. Each one of you will have something to contribute and to share. We look forward to hearing from you during the exchange session later today.
Honesty and integrity form an integral part of the core values that have shaped the culture of our civil service. A clean civil service helps to instill confidence in the public and the international business community that Hong Kong is serviced by an Administration that fully recognizes the importance of good governance.
Maintaining a clean civil service is a key task of the Civil Service Bureau. We go about doing it through a three-pronged approach: namely prevention, education and sanction. Integrity management is about winning hearts and minds from within an organization. It has also much to do with providing appropriate internal checks and balances backed by effective sanctions.
As a measure of the importance we attach to this on-going task, we work closely with ICAC. Let me give you an over-view of the joint efforts made by CSB and ICAC in the past few years.
I would first deal with prevention and education. As the old saying goes, prevention is always better than cure. On this point, systems and procedures relating to operations in the government are regularly reviewed to check for gaps. So that loopholes can be promptly plugged to minimize opportunity for foul play.
Clear rules and guidelines exist to govern the conduct of civil servants. They cover such subjects as conflict of interest; acceptance of advantages; declaration of private investments; use of official information; and outside work etc.
Since the year 2000, we have reviewed all service-wide guidelines on conduct matters and up-dated a good part of them. This is to ensure that our guidelines remain clear and adequate in present-day circumstances. We also encourage departments to draw up supplementary guidelines specific to their operating environment. In the two years ending 2001, CSB and ICAC had visited all government departments to assist them in formulating or updating their departmental guidelines. Not only are clear rules fundamental to forestalling misconduct, they help establish accountability.
To enhance awareness of the high standards of conduct required of civil servants, corruption prevention courses are held on a regular basis. Since April 1999, over 70,000 officers have attended such courses.
In the year 2000, we published a handbook for senior managers in the civil service. It highlights the importance of senior civil servants setting good examples of honesty and integrity.
Departmental managers at different levels play an important role in sustaining the momentum of integrity management programmes in their departments. CSB and ICAC organize from time to time seminars and experience-sharing workshops for them on common issues. Subjects covered in workshops held in the past two years include acceptance of entertainment and how best to manage financially insolvent staff.
In addition, CSB has jointly developed with ICAC an electronic "Resource Centre on Civil Service Integrity Management". This intranet site was launched in December 2001. By assembling materials relevant to integrity management at one place, the site facilitates the work of departmental managers in embedding an ethical culture within their organizations.
I now come to sanction, the third leg of our three-pronged approach.
To uphold a high standard of probity within the civil service, we take a serious view of any breaches of the rules. Acts of conduct which raise questions about the integrity of an officer are strictly acted upon.
In the 30 months ending September 2002, 121 civil servants were subject to punitive actions for having abused their office. Of them, 37 (or over 30 per cent) had been removed from the service.
How effective are our efforts with ICAC and departments in the fight against corruption? This could perhaps be illustrated by the number of civil servants brought before the Court. In the year 2001, 30 civil servants were convicted of corruption or other charges as a result of ICAC investigations. That number has consistently remained at such a level since 1997. Members of the public generally recognize that we continue to have an honest and clean civil service.
There is of course no room for complacency. As the Principal Official responsible for managing the civil service, I wish to re-affirm the SARG's commitment on this front.
We are determined to keep the civil service as an institution that could be trusted upon to shield people from corruption. The Administration underlines this point when rolling out the Accountability System in July 2002. We have assured the public that the Principal Officials, as the top echelon of the Government, would take the lead in and contribute towards preserving an honest and clean civil service.
That pledge has been written into a Code of Practice. The Code requires all Principal Officials to perform their official duties and to arrange their private affairs in a manner capable of standing up to the closest public scrutiny.
An honest and clean civil service is essential for maintaining public confidence in and support for the SARG. It is also one of the cornerstones for fulfilling Hong Kong's aspirations to become Asia's world city, in terms of good governance.
We will spare no efforts in keeping the civil service clean and in strengthening our ethics infrastructure.
Next year, CSB and ICAC will embark on another round of visits to government departments to consolidate recent efforts made in integrity management. We shall enhance the role of the electronic "Resource Centre on Civil Service Integrity Management" and develop it into a focal point for best practices adopted by government departments.
We welcome suggestions from today's forum on how we could do better. As leaders in Government and business, we have a major responsibility in setting high ethical standards in governance and work practices, and in ensuring that they are met at all times.
With your support, I am confident that we will maintain Hong Kong's international ranking as a world city with the highest ethical standards.
Thank you.
End/Thursday, December 12, 2002
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