**************************************************************
Following is the English translation of the speech by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Miss Denise Yue, on the Motion of Thanks for the 2006-2007 Policy Address today (October 25):
Madam President,
First of all, I would like to thank Members for expressing a wide spectrum of views on civil service matters.
The Chief Executive has in his Policy Address commended the Hong Kong civil service as amongst the finest in the world. As the Secretary for the Civil Service, I have the responsibility to do my best to maintain a permanent and professional team of civil servants who are politically neutral, clean, efficient and committed. I also have a duty to defend the integrity of our civil servants. Our civil service colleagues do not subscribe to the "work less, err not" culture. In fact, they are fully committed to supporting the Government's execution of policies and under no circumstances will shrink from their commitment to provide quality public services to the community.
Madam President, though at the moment I cannot see the Honourable Wong Kwok-hing in this Chamber, I still want to take this opportunity to clarify that the Chief Secretary is not the head of the civil service. I note from what the Honourable Wong has just said that he took the Chief Secretary as the head of the Civil Service, which is perhaps simply a misunderstanding. After the introduction of the political appointment system in 2002, it is the Secretary for the Civil Service who assumes the duty to formulate policies related to the civil service and manage the team of civil servants. If the Honourable Wong or any Members of this Council thinks that any part of the civil service policies is inadequate or needs to improve, or there are areas for improvement in the management of the civil service, then I am the person to come to.
Madam President, in the addresses made by Members just now, I notice that they have expressed views on a number of significant issues, including the civil service establishment, the Non-Civil Service Contract Staff Scheme, civil service pay adjustment and political neutrality of our civil service. I will respond to each of these issues. Also, I will pursue these as well as other civil service-related issues at meetings of the Panel on Public Service where in-depth discussion with Members will be held.
On civil service establishment, Members who spoke in the Debate do recognise that over the past few years, under the principle of maintaining the level and quality of the services provided to the public, concerted efforts have been made in the civil service to streamline the procedures and flow of work, enhance efficiency, and progressively reduce the number of civil servants and civil service posts. As at the end of August 2006, the strength of the civil service was less than 160,000. The civil service establishment has been reduced by 18% from about 198,000 in early 2000 to about 162,300.
Continuous efforts will be made to monitor the staffing situation of individual bureaux and departments through their annual manpower plans. We shall continue to discuss and work with them to control their establishment through measures such as internal deployment, deletion of vacancies, streamlining, etc. While it remains our target to reduce the civil service establishment to about 160,000 by end March 2007, we remain committed to refrain from forced redundancy in a bid to reduce the establishment. We will follow the principle of increasing or decreasing the number of staff on well-justified needs in reviewing the manpower requirements. We will recruit staff to fill vacancies as appropriate and create new posts when such need arises so as to provide bureaux and departments with adequate staff to implement new initiatives and meet the public's demands. We will also review the need to resume open recruitment to enable the Administration to inject new blood into the civil service and to safeguard against succession problems in the longer term. We aim to report the outcome of the review to the Panel on Public Service upon its completion by the end of this financial year.
A number of Members have touched on the issue of non-civil service contract staff in their addresses.
The Non-Civil Service Contract Staff Scheme was introduced in 1999 to provide heads of departments with a flexible means to employ staff on fixed contract terms outside the civil service establishment to meet service needs which are time-limited, short-term or seasonal, or subject to market fluctuations, or which require staff on a part-time basis, or where the mode of delivery of the service is under review or likely to be changed. The CSB has set out the guiding principles and detailed arrangements for reference by heads of departments in the employment of NCSC staff.
The number of NCSC staff may fluctuate, depending on the need. In conjunction with the departments, we are now conducting a review of the NCSC staff situation. Where it is established that civil servants instead of NCSC staff should be employed to meet specific service needs, we would devise appropriate follow-up measures with the bureaux and departments concerned while keeping the size of the overall civil service establishment under control. We aim to complete the review around the end of this year and report the outcome to the Panel on Public Service. I would like to reiterate that appointments to the Civil Service are based on the principle of open and fair competition. NCSC staff who apply for civil service posts have to go through a selection process together with other applicants not employed in the Civil Service. In line with the Government's objective of making appointments on the basis of merits, the best persons from the eligible applicants will be selected to fill the posts concerned.
The Honourable Li Fung-ying has just brought up the issue of civil service pay level survey. In March 2005, we decided to conduct a pay level survey for the civil service based on the survey methodology recommended by the consultant (i.e. the consultant engaged for the design of the survey methodology). According to the recommended survey methodology, civil service jobs and private sector jobs that are broadly comparable in terms of job content, work nature, level of responsibility and typical requirements on qualifications and experience will be matched to serve as a basis for pay comparison purpose. We appointed the Phase Two consultant in June 2005 to undertake the field work of the pay level survey. The consultant has recently completed an intensive job inspection process, which includes conducting over 200 job inspection interviews for over 1,400 representatives of civil service job holders, to ascertain the job-related characteristics of the civil service benchmark jobs. In total, 360 job descriptions have been drawn up for 61 civil service benchmark grades. This process has laid the ground for identifying appropriate job matches in the private sector to facilitate the collection of private sector pay data. After briefing the staff sides on the job matching approach, the consultant is now conducting job matching in some 100 private sector organisations under the principle of broad comparability, with a view to collecting pay data from these organisations using April 1, 2006 as the reference date. The job-matching and data collection processes are expected to be completed by end 2006 or early 2007.
It has all along been our primary principle to conduct extensive staff consultation for the sake of ensuring adequate and full communication, and enhancing mutual trust with the staff side in conducting the pay survey. As usual, we will consult the staff side on the application of the pay survey results. Through detailed discussion with the Consultative Group on Civil Service Pay Adjustment Mechanism, the inherent differences between the civil service and the private sector are fully reflected while the relevant policy considerations, including upholding and cultivating the core values of the civil service, are duly taken into account when determining the pay adjustment. We would continue to report the progress of the pay level survey and other related matters to the Panel on Public Service at future meetings.
In the address made by the Honourable Emily Lau Wai-hing just now, she particularly express concerns about whether civil servants could maintain political neutrality, especially when the further development of the political appointment system is underway.
Traditionally, the civil service represents the core foundation of the Government and provides stability and continuity for Hong Kong's governance and government operations. In the further development of the political appointment system, the Government is committed to maintaining a permanent, professional, meritocratic, clean and politically neutral civil service.
The constitutional role of the civil service is to support the serving Chief Executive and his Government. The two features of the civil service, namely permanency and political impartiality, enable it to perform such role. The permanent nature of the civil service provides stability and continuity to the governance of Hong Kong through changing times and changing political leadership. The permanency of the civil service goes hand-in-hand with its political impartiality. The civil service must be politically impartial in order to serve the Chief Executive, the Principal Officials and the Government of the day - whatever their political persuasion - with total loyalty on the one hand; and to retain the confidence of - and serve with equal loyalty - a future Chief Executive, future Principal Officials and future Government of perhaps a different political persuasion on the other.
The concept of a politically neutral civil service does not mean that it needs not engage in any work with political content. It means that the civil service must give full support and commitment to the Government of the day. In making policies, civil servants put forward honest and impartial advice on policy options formulated by the Government of the day to their best abilities. Once decisions are taken by the political tier, civil servants will, regardless of their own personal convictions, implement the decisions taken and discharge their public functions without fear or favour. Traditionally, senior civil servants have been involved in work with political content, such as explaining and defending government policies and decisions, and lobbying for support for them. With the introduction of additional political appointments, the political team will play a more important role in this aspect of work. However, this does not mean that civil servants, particularly senior officers, need not engage in such work in the future. There is no incompatibility with civil service political neutrality for them to take on such work. Nevertheless, under the principle of upholding the core value of political neutrality, civil servants should not engage in certain political work, such as election politics or personal electioneering activities or those of political parties. During the development of the political appointment system, I, as the Secretary for the Civil Service, have not received any complaints from civil servants about being instructed by his Secretary or supervisor to engage in any business related to electioneering activities.
Madam President, I understand that some of the public are of the view that the civil service has much room for improvement. In this respect, civil service colleagues and I will continue to work with dedication and strive for excellence. However, in general, I believe that most of the public recognise the contribution of the civil service. I look forward to continuous co-operation with civil service colleagues, Members of this Council and the community at large in our efforts to upgrade our civil service continuously.
Madam President, with these remarks, I sincerely hope that Members will support the 2006-07 Policy Address and oppose the two amendments to the Motion of Thanks. Thank you.
Ends/Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Issued at HKT 23:56
NNNN
