CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION
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This indicates that about one person in every 18 of the estimated adult working population - or one in 40 of the total population - is employed by the government. There is a large proportion of labouring staff, and 35,800 of the total establishment of the civil service are labourers, semi-skilled labourers or artisans of one kind or another. The Hong Kong civil service is somewhat unusual in that it does some jobs which in other territories and administrations are done by people who do not belong to the civil service. Elsewhere, for example, 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 establishment of the Medical and Health Department (15,700), the Public Works Department (15,600), the Urban Ser- vices Department (18,900) and the Royal Hong Kong Police (20,500) account for a total of 70,700 posts or about 60 per cent of the total establishment of the service. The service has grown from 17,500 in 1949 to about 69,000 in 1967 and now to more than 108,000. This reflects both the continuing expansion of existing services, in line with the increasing population, and the development of new services to meet changing needs.
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The cost of the civil service is reflected in the expenditure on personal emoluments. For the year 1977-8, this is estimated to be about $2,421 million, excluding pensions. This is about 39 per cent of the total estimated recurrent expenditure for the year.
The establishment of each post in the civil service requires the approval of the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council, assisted by the advice of its establish- ment sub-committee. The Finance Committee examines all requests for additional posts - both for new projects and to meet increasing workloads
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to ensure that staff
are properly utilised and that new posts are provided only when necessary.
Recruitment and promotions in the civil service are, with a few exceptions, subject to the advice of the Public Services Commission. This was set up in 1950 and is in- dependent of the government. The commission also advises the government on dis- cipline cases. There is a full-time chairman of the commission, and leading citizens are appointed as members on a part-time voluntary basis.
Overall responsibility for recruitment, promotion, conditions of service, accommo- dation, pay, training, discipline and structure of the civil service lies with the Civil Service Branch of the Government Secretariat. Further information on the civil service is given in the annual Report on the Civil Service.
Government Secretariat
The Chief Secretary is the Governor's principal adviser on policy, the chief executive of the government, the head of the civil service and the chief government spokesman. His office, the Government Secretariat, co-ordinates and supervises the work of all government departments.
The Financial Secretary is responsible for financial and economic policy, and for the overall supervision of departments primarily involved in this field.
The Government Secretariat is organised into seven policy and two resource branches, a branch dealing with the machinery of government and a branch dealing with New Territories affairs. Each branch is headed by a secretary. The policy branches are based on programme areas, as indicated by their titles: Environment, Economic Services, Home Affairs and Information, Housing, Security, Social Services, and