Speech by the Hon. Martin Rowlands
Secretary for the Civil Service
in Legislative Council on 16th November 1978
Sir,
I cannot think of a better starting point than
Dr Rayson Huang's plea that we should do more to inculcate
in civil servants a true sense of service to the
community. We have, I think, made considerable strides
in this direction during the past decade, and the great
majority of civil servants do undoubtedly recognise where
their responsibility lies. But there are regrettably some
amongst us who need reminding of this point, and we shall
check that we really are getting the message across during
induction training, and, later on, during the in-service
training which more and more officers are now attending.
2.
I thought that Dr Huang's remarks on the need
for the civil service to achieve greater rapport with the
community, with corresponding changes in administrative
style, were most apposite, and we shall consider introducing
this theme into some of our seminars for more senior officers.
3.
Several members expressed keen interest in the
outcome of the current review of policies for the housing
of civil servants. Work on the review itself is now
substantially complete. However, the purpose of the review
was to form a basis for considering improved forms of
assistance to civil servants. This, I regret to say, has
proved a more difficult task than we had expected, not
least because of the upward trend in property costs, and
more/....