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Following is the English version of the speech by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, on debate on the Motion of Thanks on the 2005-06 Policy Address today (October 26):
Madam President,
First of all, I would like to thank Members for expressing valuable views on civil service matters.
As the Secretary for the Civil Service, I have the responsibility to dedicate myself to maintaining the political neutrality of the civil service, safeguarding the legitimate interests of civil servants, and ensuring that we have a clean, efficient, committed and professional civil service that renders full support to the SAR Government in its policy execution and provides quality service to the community.
Civil Service Reform
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To keep pace with the changes and progress of our society, our civil service system needs to undergo various reforms. Since 1999, the SAR Government has been implementing the Civil Service Reform, and significant achievements have been made in streamlining the civil service establishment, rationalising civil service pay and benefits, improving the reward and disciplinary mechanism, and enhancing staff training. As in the past debates on the Policy Address, I will attach a summary on the progress of Civil Service Reform to this speaking note for the reference of Members and the public. I have taken note of the comments given by the Honourable Wong Kwok-hing, Tam Yiu-chung and Lee Cheuk-yan about the employment of non-civil service contract staff and outsourcing of government services. I will continue to discuss these issues with Members at future meetings of the Panel on Public Service. Here I would like to reiterate two points. First, as a good employer, the Government will set the renumeration package for non-civil service contract staff with reference to market situations; second, a key principle governing outsourcing of government services is that it would not result in staff redundancy. Today, I shall focus on the efforts we have made to maintain the integrity and efficiency of the civil service.
Safeguarding Integrity
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Our civil service is widely acclaimed as one of the cleanest civil service forces in the world. According to the annual report released by the Transparency International last week, Hong Kong's corruption perception index compares favourably with that of last year. This is also the best corruption perception index we have ever achieved since reunification in 1997. We shall however remain vigilant in guarding against corruption. The Civil Service Bureau has been maintaining close cooperation with the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and various departments to promote a clean culture within the civil service. To this end, we have adopted a three-pronged approach, namely prevention, education and sanction.
On the prevention front, we work closely with ICAC's Corruption Prevention Department and critically review departments' operational procedures in discharging various government functions, e.g. licensing, regulation, procurement, contract management, staff management and public works.
On the publicity and education front, we have just issued the updated Civil Servant's Guide to Good Practices to civil servants of all ranks. The booklet outlines the good conduct required of all civil servants. In June this year, we organised a large-scale leadership forum in conjunction with ICAC to enable the Government, the public sector and the business community to share experience in integrity management and identify new challenges.
For the very small number of misbehaving civil servants, we will continue to impose severe sanctions. Once an allegation of corruption or misconduct is substantiated, we will take stern actions in accordance with the law or civil service disciplinary procedures.
Our integrity management measures have achieved positive results. Only 38 government employees were prosecuted for corruption in 2004, representing a decrease of 24% over 2003. In the first nine months this year, the figure was further reduced to 20. This prosecution figure was very low when compared with the overall size of the civil service establishment of 160 000. Corruption reports involving government departments received by ICAC are also on the decrease in recent years. In the first nine months this year, the number of reports received showed a decrease of 12% over the same period last year. However, there is no room for complacency. We shall keep the effectiveness of various measures under constant review and adopt new initiatives to ensure that Hong Kong continues to have a clean and honest civil service that is acclaimed internationally.
Improving Efficiency
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Over the past few years, various departments have been sparing no efforts to streamline their organizational structure and achieve manpower savings to meet the Government's need for reducing expenditure. At present, the civil service establishment has been reduced by 17% from the peak of 198 000 posts in January 2000 to 164 000 posts. The actual strength stands at about 157 800. We follow the principle that we will review our manpower requirement critically and increase or decrease the number of staff. It remains our target to reduce the civil service establishment to about 160 000 posts by end-March 2007. Yet to implement the measures mentioned in this year's Policy Address, we envisage the need to slightly increase the number of directorate posts and create about 1 000 middle or lower-rank posts in the coming year. We shall consult the relevant LegCo Panels on specific proposals and seek the approval of the Finance Committee/Establishment Subcommittee in due course.
Despite resource and manpower constraints, the SAR Government remains committed to providing more and better services to cater for the needs of the community. Departmental management and frontline staff have sought to further enhance operational efficiency by streamlining work procedures and improving the mode of service delivery. Our achievements in enhancing efficiency are widely recognised by the international community. According to the World Competitivenesss Yearbook 2005 released by the International Institute for Management Development, we rank first in terms of government efficiency. A report issued by the World Bank in May this year also indicates that our Government Effectiveness Index has been improving since 2000.
I understand that some people think that there is still room for improvement in certain aspects of the Government's work. We will strive to do better. As a general point, I believe that the vast majority of the public recognise the contributions made by the civil service. According to the recent surveys conducted by the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the ratio of respondents satisfied with the performance of the SAR Government is record-high while the ratio of dissatisfied respondents is the lowest since reunification. Given that the civil service forms the backbone of the SAR Government, both the views of the international community and of the local public confirm that our civil service on the whole maintains its high quality and continues to improve.
To further enhance our efficiency, we must remain determined in handling the small number of civil servants who do not measure up despite our assistance and counselling. In 2003, we streamlined Section 12 of the Public Service (Administration) Order, enabling departments to retire officers with persistent substandard performance. After consulting the Public Service Commission, the management and the staff sides, we have revised the relevant procedures last week and have shortened the period for measuring underperformance from 12 months to 6 months. In other words, an officer will be removed if he underperforms over a period of 6 months. The revised procedures not only serve as a more effective management tool, but also demonstrate to the vast majority of dedicated and diligent civil servants that we will not tolerate the very small number of substandard performers.
Conclusion
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Since taking up office as the Secretary for the Civil Service, I have been actively pushing ahead with the Civil Service Reform. Some may think that the reform measures are too much or too drastic, while many hold the opposite view. Yet, we have not slowed down the pace of reform. Last week, at the Panel on Public Service meeting, I briefed Members on the policy initiatives outlined in this year's Policy Agenda. I shall keep Members informed of the progress and seek their views when necessary. I look forward to continuous cooperation with civil service colleagues, members of the Council and the community at large in our efforts to modernise and upgrade our civil service. I have full confidence that our civil servants will continue to regard it an honour to serve the community and the public will continue to take pride in having a quality civil service.
Thank you, Madam President.
Ends/Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Issued at HKT 21:06
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