72A,
Mr Searle HKGD K 242
CONFIDENTIAL
Mr. Williamson 16.11
Fram"
Mr
LA/HK/5
Reference
778
HKK430/1
HONG KONG : STANDING COMMISSION ON CIVIL SERVICE
1.
مل
Please refer to your minute of 28 October and to the attached EXCO memorandum.
2. I must be cautious since I have not seen the Commission's Report No 4, mentioned at paragraph 2 of the EXCO memorandum but I support fully the Commission's recommendations on such matters as the development of departmental consultative machinery, staff relations and staff management work, and the adoption of a phased programme designed to complete implementation of the recommendations in their entirety by 1982 (I assume this is a correct interpretation of paragraph 7 of the memorandum).
•
3. Though the Commission has recommended that the 1968 Agreement which establishes the Senior Civil Service Council should be jointly reviewed by the official and staff sides of the Council, I am disappointed that the Commission has not itself expressed a view on what can and should be done to make the Council more representative of the middle and upper levels of the Civil Service. (I am assuming that separate arrangements will now be made for junior grades and MOD1 employees). The staff side of the Council consists of members nominated by the three main staff associations. In aggregate the total membership of the three associations is probably something of the order of 10,000 compared with the 100,000 or so public servants in Hong Kong. Some critics also complain that the official repre- sentatives only possess very limited powers to negotiate and that the Staff Associations have no formal access to the departments in government and public service which actually decide on their claims. The relationships between the departmental councils and the central body also need to be defined.
4. Whatever may be the difficulties concerning "arbitration" (paragraph 13 of the EXCO memorandum) disputes will inevitably arise at departmental and central Council levels. These will need to be resolved and, as long ago as 1977, Professor Turner proposed a permanent arbitration commission. Paragraph 11 of the EXCO memo- randum appears to agree that pressures are likely to increase for the establishment of some form of additional machinery to deal with intractable disputes. The final sentence of paragraph 13 may indicate that the administration has not lost sight of the procedure provided by articles 2 and 6 of the 1968 agreement which established the SCSC and which provide for disputes to be referred to an "independent committee of inquiry" but procedures and machinery akin to the UK Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal may merit further consideration once an expanded system for consultation at central and departmental levels has been devised and is operational.
5. As you know, Professor Turner in his study of labour relations in Hong Kong also makes several recommendations which impinge on the subject matter of the EXCO memorandum: eg the Commission should be assisted by assessors appointed as having the particular confidence of the unions during the review of civil service
CONFIDENTIAL
/negotiating