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Following is the text of the opening remarks made by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the press conference on the Policy Agenda under the theme of "Effective Governance" today (January 14):

Capitalising on the Strength of Civil Service

The Chief Executive has delivered his 2003 Policy Address entitled "Capitalising on Our Advantages, Revitalising Our Economy". The theme is closely related to the civil service because the Chief Executive endorsed that a clean and efficient civil service was one of the fundamental strengthens of Hong Kong in addressing the economic problems we were facing now and the challenges we were going to face in future. Besides, the Chief Executive also acknowledged that the civil service had made remarkable contributions in achieving a savings of $6 billion and a 10 per cent reduction in civil service establishment while assuring the quality of public services in increasing productivity under the Enhanced Productivity Programme.

Reducing the Civil Service Establishment

In contributing to the objective of reducing the public expenditure by $20 billion by 2006/07, the Policy Address has set out the target of reducing the civil service establishment by the following initiatives:

a) reducing the civil service establishment by 10 per cent from the present level of some 178,000 to about 160,000 by 2006/07;

b) implementing a general recruitment freeze to the civil service with effect from April 1, 2003; and

c) launching the second Voluntary Retirement Scheme shortly.

Reducing the Civil Service Establishment

We have already reduced the establishment of the civil service from some 198,000 in early 1999 to the present level of 178,000 over the last three years. In achieving the new target of 10% reduction of the civil service establishment, we hope to further reduce the civil service establishment by 10% through natural wastage, the general recruitment freeze and the launch of the second Voluntary Retirement Scheme. This is a practical target and heads of department will be working hard to achieve it.

General Recruitment Freeze

In order to reduce the civil service establishment, we shall impose a general civil service recruitment freeze from 1 April 2003 onwards. Similar measures were implemented between 1999 and 2001. No new recruitment exercise should commence unless there is exceptional approval by a high level panel co-chaired by the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Secretary for the Civil Service as member where very strong justifications are involved.

Second Voluntary Retirement Scheme

The administration has decided to launch the Second Voluntary Retirement Scheme to provide an exit mechanism for identified or anticipated surplus staff in the civil service to leave voluntarily in order to facilitate Heads of Department/Grade to re-engineer, re-organise and re-prioritise their operations. The main features of the scheme include:

(1) open to designated ranks or grades with surplus staff;

(2) officers joining the scheme must have five or more than five years of service before their normal retirement;

(3) officers approved under the Scheme will get a lump-sum payment and a monthly pension immediately after their retirement. The lump-sum payment is calculated on the basis of one month's salary for every two complete years of service of the officer and the maximum of Voluntary Retirement Payment is 14 months of an officer's salary;and

(4) a Voluntary Retirement taker's post or a post of the same rank of the taker will be deleted upon the departure of a taker. There will be a five-year civil service recruitment freeze to the relevant grades from the date when the Scheme comes into operation.

The offer is not as generous as the first Voluntary Retirement Scheme because of the current financial situation. We want to make the Scheme more cost-effective because the officers concerned could receive the lump sum and the monthly pension immediately after their retirement. We believe it would still be attractive. We are now inviting the Heads of Department/Grade to confirm the grades and ranks to be included. We believe it would involve some 200 grades, with a strength of about 100,000.

End/Tuesday, January 14, 2003

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