Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Email this article Government Homepage
LCQ10: Applications for post-retirement outside work
****************************************************

    Following is a question by the Hon Albert Ho Chun-yan and a written reply on applications for post-retirement outside work by the Permanent Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Andrew Wong, in the absence of the Secretary for the Civil Service, in the Legislative Council today (November 8):

Question:    

     Will the Government inform this Council of:

(a)  the respective numbers of civil servants at or above Master Pay Scale Point 30 ("MPS 30") or at directorate level in bureaux and government departments who retired in 2004, 2005 and the first half of 2006, with a breakdown by bureaux and departments;

(b)  the number of cases in which the above-mentioned retired civil servants at or above MPS 30 applied for taking up employment within two years from their retirement, with a breakdown by bureaux and departments, and the number of such cases approved, with a breakdown by the nature of work involved in the approved cases as follows (see Table 1);

(c)  the number of cases in which the above-mentioned retired directorate civil servants applied for taking up employment within three years from their retirement, with a breakdown by bureaux and departments, and the number of such cases approved, with a breakdown by the nature of work involved in the approved cases as follows (see Table 2); and

(d)  the number of cases in which the retired civil servants mentioned in (a) above applied for post-retirement employment but were rejected as well as the reasons for rejection, with a breakdown by bureaux and government departments as well as salary scales (at or above MPS 30 or at directorate level)?

Reply:

Madam President,

     Under existing policy, all retired civil servants who wish to take up outside work (the principal part of which is carried out in Hong Kong) during their final leave period and/or within a specified control period from their retirement have to apply for prior permission. The control period is three years for officers remunerated at Directorate Pay Scale (DPS) Point 8 or equivalent and two years for other officers. Blanket permission is however given to officers remunerated on the Model Scale 1 Pay Scale to take up post-service outside work. Effective from January 1, 2006, all officers are also given blanket permission to take up unremunerated work with specified non-commercial organisations which include (a) charitable, academic or other non-profit making organisations not primarily engaged in commercial operations; (b) non-commercial regional/international organisations; and (c) the Central Authorities.  

     The Head of Department (HoD)/Head of Grade (HoG) is the approving authority for post-service outside work for non-directorate officers. Applications from directorate officers are approved by the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) and will be submitted to an independent Advisory Committee on Post-service Employment of Civil Servants (Advisory Committee) for advice. The Advisory Committee publishes an annual report on its work, which provides an overview of post-service outside work applications handled in the year. A copy of the report is issued to the Legislative Council Panel on Public Service for reference each year.

     The requested information is set out as follows:

(a)  In compiling civil service personnel statistics, it is our practice to classify civil servants according to different salary groups. We do not maintain statistics on civil servants at or above Master Pay Scale (MPS) Point 30 as a group. Instead, there are salary groups of MPS Point 34 ¡V 44 and MPS Point 45 ¡V 49, who are middle management/professional officers and senior management/senior professional officers respectively.  As such, we can only provide the numbers of civil servants by bureaux/departments who retired from the service between  January 1, 2004 and June 30, 2006, and whose ranks are within MPS Point 34 ¡V 49 or DPS, or equivalent. Details are at Annex A.

(b)  As applications for post-service outside work from non-directorate officers are approved by the respective bureaux and departments, CSB does not have ready details of such applications. In view of the limited time available and the substantial number of applications involved, we are not able to provide the detailed information relating to non-directorate officers as requested. We have however gathered from bureaux /departments the numbers of applications received/approved/rejected in respect of officers who retired between January 1, 2004 and the first half of 2006, and whose salary falls within MPS Point 34 ¡V 49 or equivalent. The detailed information is set out in Annex B.  

(c)  Applications from directorate officers are centrally approved by CSB, and the requested information is now compiled and set out in Annex C.

(d)  The policy and arrangement governing post-service outside work are clearly set out in the Civil Service Regulations and relevant circulars. Civil servants are generally well aware of the approving criteria, and the need to avoid any real or perceived conflict of interest in taking up post-service outside work. Hence, they will unlikely apply for outside work which may cause real or perceived conflict of interest. Of the officers at MPS Point 34 ¡V 49 or equivalent and directorate officers who retired between January 1, 2004 and June 30, 2006, seven applications for post-retirement outside work were rejected as at September 30, 2006 on grounds that the proposed work may give rise to real or perceived conflict of interest. A table showing the seven rejected applications is at Annex D.

Ends/Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:40

NNNN