390
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
statement just made that there was no problem for filling posts? The first part of the answer indicates that there is some over staffing in the management grade, are we going to continue to exchange staff between the New Territories and ourselves after the Regional Council have been formed?
DR. THE HON. KIM CHAM (in English): Mr. Chairman, on the first part of the question concerning the vacancies for Foreman grade, as we indicated in my reply previously, one very important consideration is to enable our lower staff to be able to act in order to test themselves out before they are formally confirmed, and in a post like a Foreman where fieldwork is important, this is usually applied. Although I do not have the particular figures, obviously this is a very important consideration in particular to our environmental hygiene staff, it will be on the basis of acting that we fill the positions with a view to substantive promotion. On the question of transfer to the New Territories, this will be monitored continuously and as the figures given earlier proved themselves the transfer between the urban area and the New Territories tends to balance itself out over the year and, of course, one ought to look at this with a longer term perspective.
MR. LAWRENCE FUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, on the transfer of staff between the New Territories and the urban area, Dr. CHAM's answer only gives a numerical balance. Quantitatively, it was one person against another person in the inter-departmental transfer, but there was no attempt made to give us an answer on the qualitative aspect of the staff involved. We all know that the services provided by the Urban Council in the urban area, whether it is in culture, environmental hygiene and so on, are much more sophisticated than those provided by the NTSD. Therefore, on numerical ground, we may be swapping person one for one, the officer that comes from the New Territories into the urban area may not have the type of experience that the Urban Council requires to manage the sophisticated services, so how could Dr. CHAM qualify these people being transferred inwards to us? Are they equally competent as the one we sent to the NTSD?
DR. THE HON. KIM CHAM (in English):---Mr. Chairman, it is indeed a two-edged sword, likewise the NTSD can complain that they are not getting the right kind of people from the urban area to the New Territories, because they operate a different type of cultural and recreational facilities. What Mr. FUNG might call 'backward', Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the word 'backward', but perhaps on a different level than we do. Nevertheless I think it is indeed a two-edged sword when one look at the quality of staff, it is important to note that cross fertilization does help departments mutually in terms of improving the efficiency and the work of both departments. As far as the Council is concerned, all the individual functional select committees will be monitoring their work likewise the staff who is doing the work and if, of course, the staff is not
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 215 of 233
391
good enough, our functional select committees with our able chairmen and vice-chairmen will be able to monitor and say that the quality of the work is not sufficiently adequate.
MR. SZE (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I realize I had asked a 3-part question from Dr. CHAM, but he did not answer one of those, just to remind what I asked, doesn't the first part of his answer indicate that there is over staffing in the management grade? If I might after the answers just heard, would it not be better if we now stop transferring personnel from urban area to the New Territories and vice versa, I think it will be to the advantage of both Councils.
DR. THE HON. KIM CHAM (in English):-Mr. Chairman, it appears difficult for me to handle multi-part questions, but I shall do so again. The first part of the question on the possibility of over staffing, certainly I think in any commercial organization when people go on leave or training for short term reasons, doubling up is used, and it would be more effective in terms of using the same stream of people to do the work. I must apologize I seem to have forgotten the second part of the question on stop transferring, as I said earlier it seems that there is certainly benefit in cross fertilization between the two departments. Again there are two ways of looking at the same problem, stop transferring will restrict our staff in terms of promotion possibility, and exchange of experiences which is necessary in many instances in a big department like the Urban Services Department.
MRS. MARGARET LI (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, through you I have a question to put to Dr. CHAM. Dr. CHAM said that there are several career grades which might have difficulties in recruitment process and there could be longer training period, could I ask what sort of difficulties have been encountered and how much need time is required? Would those developments lead to delays in the implementation of work of the department? If we have identified the difficulties and the delays, have we made any plans for solutions?
DR. THE HON. KIM CHAM (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, in my reply I have quoted you an example, say for instance, Environmental Protection Officers, now these people usually are required with some special skills and they are not easily identifiable. Of course, we cannot say that we have to fill the posts, so we will take whoever that comes along regardless of the quality of the applicant. Therefore, there are some posts which required a longer lead time to fill, of course, I cannot say how much lead time would be required because we have over 10,000 officers working with us. However, when the department undertakes recruitment exercises, I believe that they will pay attention to the quality as well as quantity at the same time.
Page 215
Page 216