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The Acting Chief Executive, Mr Henry Tang, commended and congratulated the winning departments and teams for their commitment to service excellence, keeping Hong Kong as a city of quality life, when officiating at the prize presentation ceremony of the 2009 Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme this afternoon (September 29).
Mr Tang said the civil service should sustain its efforts in striving for excellence and embracing changes in a proactive and pragmatic manner.
The Secretary for the Civil Service, Miss Denise Yue, and more than 600 guests and civil servants, celebrated the outstanding achievements of the winning departments and teams at the ceremony. She stressed, "The significance of the award scheme lies not with the identification of winners, but with the opportunity for colleagues in the civil service to review successful quality service schemes, consolidate experiences and broaden perspectives, so as to further enhance the quality of service delivered to the public."
This year, the award scheme attracted 141 entries from 51 departments. A total of 50 nominations from 25 participating departments were given awards under the eight award categories.
In his address, Mr Tang spoke highly of the outstanding achievements of the winning departments and teams. He quoted two cases of exemplary service, including the project of intercepting drains at the Queen's Road Central and the Sichuan disaster relief operation in 2008, which amply demonstrated the pursuit of excellence and people-based culture of the civil service.
Adjudicators of the 2009 Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme came from different sectors and professions. One of the chairpersons of the adjudicating panels of this year's award scheme, Mr Lee Cheuk-yan, who was one of the officiating guests, also complimented the award-winning departments on its people-based and innovative delivery of quality public service.
Another adjudicator, Mr Buston Chu, Vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Customer Service Excellence, praised the civil service for its devotion, as well as its commitment to listening to public views and launching new services for the benefit of the public.
The Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme, first launched by the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) in 1999, aims to promote a people-based service culture. Apart from recognising the efforts of winning departments and teams in providing excellent service, the awards also inspire other departments and civil servants to emulate the best practices for continuous improvement.
This year's award scheme was co-organised by the Hong Kong Management Association. The scheme consists of two major categories of awards - departmental awards and team awards. All the award winning departments and teams had to go through two stages of rigorous adjudication.
To promote the commendable efforts of the awardees, the CSB has arranged to present the success stories in a number of TV programmes. A one-hour episode, featuring the outstanding performance of winning departments and teams, as well as highlights of the award presentation ceremony, will be broadcast on TVB Jade at 7.30pm and i-Cable Live News Channel at 11.30pm on Saturday (October 3) (Mid-Autumn Festival), to be followed by more short winning stories on ATV Home at 11am and TVB Jade at 3.20pm every Sunday from October 4 to December 27.
For more details of the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme, please visit the CSB's website (www.csb.gov.hk).
Ends/Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:00
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