CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION
The government is developing its use of manpower planning techniques and practices in order to ensure that the public service possesses the right mix of officers in terms of numbers, experience, qualifications and skills to achieve its objectives and goals. Particular care and attention is paid to the selection and grooming of senior government officials.
Civil Service Training
The government attaches great importance to the training of public servants in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness and to help them meet new challenges. Induction and refresher training is provided by many departments to equip staff with the skills to carry out their duties effectively. Where the need arises, staff are also sponsored on overseas training courses or attachments so that they can keep abreast of the latest developments in their specialised fields. To meet common departmental needs, the Civil Service Training Centre conducts a wide range of management, language and computer courses, and co-ordinates the management training undertaken by public servants at local and overseas institutes. As the central training agency, it also provides advice and assistance to departments.
An important component of the training and development offered to senior public servants is the well established three-month programme run by the Senior Staff Course Centre. The centre emphasises 'learning from doing' and participants undertake almost 100 significant projects with policy implications each year. Study tours to other countries in the region-provide valuable broadening experience and foster much goodwill with host governments. Interchange of experience with invited private sector participants has also proved to be a beneficial feature of the
programme.
Government Records Service
The Government Records Service is responsible for the broad management of govern- ment records including provision of records services and advice to branches and departments.
The Records Management Office and the Public Records Office in the Govern- ment Records Service are responsible for carrying out two different but related pro- grammes to take care of the management needs of government records; a record management programme to handle records at their current and non-current stages and an archives administration programme to look after the preservation and use of permanent records.
The record is the basic unit of administration and its appropriate management will have a significant impact on the efficiency of government affairs. It is the responsibility of the Records Management Office to oversee and develop a comprehensive system concerned with everything that happens to records from their productive 'life' as a means of accomplishing the government agency's functions to their 'death' or destruction as non-current records when all useful purposes have been served. The system will fulfil the government's aim to have fewer records to store, better records to use and more economical record management costs to finance.
In September 1990, the government launched a pilot scheme to initiate records man- agement programmes in five departments: Buildings and Lands Department; Housing Department; Immigration Department; Inland Revenue Department, and Social Welfare Department. The programmes have now extended to all government departments.
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