CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION
245
In addition members of the Urban Council have a ward system through which the urban councillors receive complaints from members of the public and bring them to the attention of the appropriate government department or raise them formally in the Urban Council.
PUBLIC SERVICE
The Public Service provides the staff for all government depart- ments, sub-departments and other units of the administration. As at April 1, 1971, the total number of posts in the Public Service (or its establishment as it is generally called) was 86,268. The strength on January 1, 1971, was 81,511 officers of whom 79,637 were local officers and 1,874 were overseas officers.
This indicates that about one person in every 50 in Hong Kong is employed by the Government. There is a large proportion of labouring staff, and nearly 34,110 of the total establishment of the Public Service are labourers, semi-skilled labourers or artisans of one kind or another. The Public Service of the Hong Kong Government is somewhat unusual in that it includes the staff for certain activities which in other territories and administrations are carried out by people who do not belong to the Civil Service. For example, in other territories staff for hospitals, public works and utilities, urban cleansing and public health, and the police, are not always servants of the central government. In Hong Kong, the establishments of the Medical and Health Department (11,271 posts), the Public Works Department (11,618 posts), the Urban Services Department (14,491 posts) and the Royal Hong Kong Police Force (15,330 posts) account for a total of 52,710 posts or about 61 per cent of the total establishment of the Service.
The growth in the size of the Service from just over 17,500 in 1949 to about 45,000 in 1959 and now to its present total strength of over 81,500 reflects not only the continuing expansion of existing services, in line with the continuing expansion of the population, but also the development of new and more diverse services to meet the changing needs of the population. Although, in recent years, there has been some slowing down in the rate of expansion to about three per cent per annum, in the 1971-2 Estimates the increase in the number of permanent posts in the Public Service is just under eight per cent. This expansion is explained, on the one hand, by an increase in the demands upon the Public Service and, on the other, by a determined effort to deal with an accumulation of departmental requests for extra staff and the completion of