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the not too distant future review the situation and come up with new proposals to keep Hong Kong even cleaner as the existing policy and work of the Marine Department can not improve the situation in the harbour.
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, the work of the Keep Hong Kong Clean Campaign Committee is to educate the public and publicize the Hong Kong Clean message, therefore it cannot undertake the collection of marine refuse. I agree that there should be a review in the situation. Mr. Chairman, if you agree, the matter could be referred to the ENH Select Committee for further consideration. May be a Working Party could be set up with other Government Departments to review the problem again.
MR. RONNIE M. C. WONG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, since my name was mentioned, may be I would like to respond to this matter. I think previously we discussed this matter in 1983 and 1985 respectively, I didn't join the Council then. But looking at the reasoning behind why they don't like to have this function to be done by the Urban Services Department, I don't think this is very convincing. So I hope that the ENH Select Committee can really consider this matter. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN (in English):—I think we have Dr. LEUNG's assurance.
5. MR. JOHN K. P. FAN asked the following question (in English): Recently quite a large number of Urban Council sports and recreational facilities have been completed. Could I please be told whether current labour shortage in Hong Kong has affected the recruitment of staff required for the management of these facilities? The Council has recently adopted the proposal to employ contract lifeguards and it is quite difficult to recruit staff for our sports and recreational facilities. Has the Council considered allowing the Department to have more freedom in the recruitment of contract staff in order to avoid affecting our services to the public?
MR. STEPHEN M. L. LAU, CHAIRMAN OF THE ADMINISTRATION SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in English):—The question concerns the current labour shortage in Hong Kong and asks whether the Department should have more freedom to recruit contract staff to manage new sports and recreational facilities.
The current general shortage of labour in Hong Kong has not affected the recruitment of staff required for the management of UC sports and recreational facilities to any noticeable extent. So far, no significant recruitment difficulty has been experienced in the grades of Amenities Officer, Amenities Assistant, or Recreation and Sport Officer. The latest recruitment of staff to the basic rank of these grades indicated that there were sufficient numbers of applications. The recruitment boards held have managed to identify a good number of suitable
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candidates for appointment to the basic ranks in the grades concerned. Many of them are still on the waiting list. In the circumstances, it is not necessary for the Department to consider recruiting contract staff for the management of these facilities.
Occasionally, however, short term difficulty has been experienced in providing experienced staff for opening and manning of new venues and facilities due to the rapid expansion in the number of sports and recreational facilities provided by the Urban Council. However, the Department has endeavoured to minimize this problem by redeploying experienced staff from existing venues. Since the same problem would arise with contract staff, moving towards an increase in use of contract staff would be unlikely to improve this situation.
While the Department will continue to monitor the recruitment and deployment of staff, it does not consider the present situation requires any changes to existing practices.
MR. JOHN K. P. FAN (in English):—Mr. Chairman, when I submitted this question, it was written in Chinese. The question I want to ask is 'Does the Department encounter difficulty to recruit labourers?' I wrote in Chinese. So I am sorry, the answer is not what I want, perhaps a written reply would be given to me if my colleague doesn't mind.
MR. STEPHEN M. L. LAU (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I believe both my Chinese and English replies do not differentiate much in regard to what you call it a member of staff or a labourer. They do similar type of work in these indoor games halls or recreational facilities. So I believe up to now, we still do not encounter any difficulties in recruiting such labourers. The major difficulty that we face is that we are undergoing a rapid development and is not possible for us to deploy completely new staff to man the new venues. We must deploy some experienced staff from the existing venues to man the new venues. Whether it is our workers or contract staff, we still need to let them undergo long term training and accumulate experience. So the problem arises from experience and not short of labour. I think the above will satisfy Mr. FAN's question.
MR. WALTER M. SULKE (in English):—Mr. Chairman, while I was very happy to hear that we are not having any problems with labour shortage yet every time we want something from the Department, they say they can't give it us because they are so short of labour. Perhaps you could explain this discrepancy.
MR. STEPHEN M. L. LAU (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I think the shortage in staff is not really as Mr. SULKE suggests. I think it may be in other aspect, the Department may find difficulty of getting a right thing for Mr. SULKE because of shortage of timing for the experience of the staff to handle in such a short time. I think it may be two different things.