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Following is a question by the Hon Lau Kwong-wah and a written reply by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Miss Denise Yue, on wastage of civil servants in the Legislative Council today (May 7):
Question:
On the departure of civil servants, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of a breakdown by rank of the departed civil servants in the past three years;
(b) whether it has assessed if the departure is serious and examined the causes; and
(c) whether it knows the types of employment mainly taken up by civil servants after leaving the civil service?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) We do not keep statistics on wastage in the civil service by ranks. We are therefore unable to provide the requested information. However, we do compile wastage statistics by salary groups. The number of civil servants who left the service in each of the past three years by salary groups is set out at the Annex.
(b) The number of departures from the civil service in each of the past three years, at 2.6%, 2.6% and 3.1% of the strength of the civil service in the relevant year, is unexceptional. As shown in the Annex, most of the civil servants who left the service in the past three years did so upon retirement; and only a small number did so upon resignation, completion of agreement, termination of service, etc. Again, the position is within the norm.
Although bureaux and departments endeavour to understand from those civil servants resigning from the service the reasons for their decision, many of the concerned civil servants are not forthcoming. Based on our experience, we consider the more common causes for civil servants to resign from the service include: availability of alternative employment with better pay and/or prospects, preference for private sector pursuits to public service, realisation that the work they have to perform as civil servants is not quite what they have in mind, and pursuit of further studies.
(c) We do not seek or have comprehensive information on the nature of work taken up by civil servants after departure from the service. The limited information we have on this front is derived from the implementation of the policy on post-service outside work.
Under this policy, directorate 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 one to three years (depending on the rank, reason of leaving the service and length of service when leaving the Government) after leaving the Government have to apply for prior permission. In 2007, 55 such applications from 37 directorate civil servants were approved. These approved applications were for work related to education, management, works, finance, accounting, medical and security.
Under the policy on post-service outside work, non-directorate civil servants (other than those remunerated on the Model Scale I Pay Scale) who wish to take up outside work during their final leave period and/or two years after retirement have to apply for prior permission. In 2007, 589 such applications from 493 non-directorate civil servants were approved. These approved applications were for work related to education, security, management, medical, finance, accounting and works.
As civil servants remunerated on the Model Scale I Pay Scale are given blanket permission to take up post-service outside work, we do not have any information on the nature of work taken up by these civil servants upon leaving the service.
Ends/Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:17
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