OPY
105 Ell
EXTRACT FROM HONG KONG SALARIES COMMISSION REPORT
CHAPTER VIII.
PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION.
1947.
General.
171.
The White Paper Colonial No.197 recommends that a Public Services Commission should be set up in the Colony to advise the Governor on appointments that he is competent to make under the "general overriding powers" of the Secretary of State. It is suggested that this would assure increased confidence both in the service and among the public. With this we are entirely in agreement. The existence of the Commission should be a guarantee that conditions of service are reasonably interpreted and evenly applied.
Functions.
172.
Subject to the overriding powers of the Secretary of State the Commission should be authorised to make recommendations for the filling of all vacancies in the public services of the Colony.
173.
Effectively to achieve its purposes the Commission should be empowered:-
(i) to see that in new appointments every effort
is made to give the earliest reasonable effect to the policy defined in Section III of the White Paper regarding the improvement of opportunities for local candidates;
(ii) to lay down the form in which applications for employment should be made; to issue notices of vacancies in the public service; to take responsibility for the standard and conduct of all examinations laid down as qualification for admission to any grade of the public service and for such examination as may be prescribed as qualification for confirmation in appointments or for promotion in any service;
(iii)
to advise the Governor concerning officers recommended by Heads of Departments for promotion;
(iv) to endeavour to co-ordinate standards by which
efficiency is measured and to consider and to advise the Governor on recommendations made by Heads of Departments that officers should proceed above effieicney bars in the salary scales;
(7) to receive through Heads of Departments
representations from officers who believe that conditions of service have been interpreted to their disadvantage;
(vi) to advise the Governor on any matters relating
to conditions of service that he may refer to it.
Constitution.
174.
The Commission is strongly of opinion that in order that it may achieve the greatest measure of the confide ce of officers and the public, the Public Services Commission should be as completely as possible freed from the fact and
from