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Constitution and Administration
provide the service and the public who foot the bill, the government adopts the principle that civil service pay should be broadly comparable with private-sector pay. Pay comparisons are achieved through periodic surveys: a Pay Level Survey is conducted every six years; a Starting Salaries Survey every three years; and a Pay Trend Survey every year. In February 2015, the SCCS accepted the administration's invitation to conduct the 2015 Starting Salaries Survey to compare the starting salaries of non-directorate civilian grades of the civil service with the entry pay of jobs in the private sector requiring similar qualifications.
In accordance with the Basic Law, public servants serving in all government departments should be permanent residents of the HKSAR, save for those who fall within exceptions provided in Articles 99 and 101 of the Basic Law. This requirement applies to civil servants recruited on or after 1 July 1997.
Appointment is based on open and fair competition. The government ensures persons with disabilities and ethnic minorities, like other applicants, will continue to have equal access to job opportunities in the civil service. Promotion is performance-based.
The government monitors staff turnover closely for manpower planning purposes to keep manpower at a level commensurate with service demand. Overall wastage in the civil service was about 4.5 per cent in 2014-15. The government has a well-established mechanism to review succession planning for senior staff, identify and groom officers with potential for advancement to senior management, and develop a pool of talent for senior positions.
In order to manage public resources prudently, the government keeps a watchful eye over the size of the civil service. New posts are created only when the need is justified and other means of providing services are not feasible. At the same time, due consideration is given to the need for additional manpower to deliver new and improved services. From 2007-08 to 2013-14, the civil service establishment increased about 1 per cent annually. In 2014-15, it increased about 1.5 per cent; a similar growth rate is estimated to continue for 2015-16.
The government values regular communication and consultation with staff. There are four consultative councils at the central level, namely, the Senior Civil Service Council, the Model Scale 1 Staff Consultative Council, the Disciplined Services Consultative Council and the Police Force Council, and some 90 consultative committees at the departmental level. A Civil Service Newsletter is published regularly to provide an added link with serving and retired employees.
Staff commitment and performance are recognised through various commendation schemes. to motivate the provision of high-quality service to the public. Those schemes include the Secretary for the Civil Service's Commendation Award Scheme, which commends individual civil servants with consistently outstanding performance, and the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme, which commends achievements in service excellence on a department/team basis. On the other hand, staff misconduct is handled under an established disciplinary mechanism for punitive and deterrent purposes. To instil a culture of probity in the civil service, the Civil Service Bureau and the ICAC jointly run an ethical leadership programme, and each bureau and department is required to appoint a directorate officer to co-ordinate efforts to attain that goal.
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