CO129-599-5 Salaries Commission- Appendices to Report 1-1-1947 - 31-12-1949 — Page 12

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nature are necessary to the future structure of the Government Services, especially

now that there is the prospect at no distant date of the transfer of many depart-

monts of the Administration to a municipality, when it will become essential to

safeguard the interests of existing officers who accept secondment or transfor

to the municipal service. The practicability of the recommendations in thesc

chapters must in due course receive the closest consideration of the Government with

a view to their implementation as far as possible.

22.

Paragraph 36 of the Report raises the question of retrenchment.

It may

and go.

be expected that, when the final decisions have been made on the report and officers

know what their new position will be in regard to emoluments, many who have reached

or already passed an age at which they may retiro will wish to tako their pensions

If, as is suggested, the age of retirement may in certain circumstances

be reduced to forty-five, still others may go at that age or as soon thereafter as

possible. The imposition of higher standards for new candidates, and more rigorous

efficiency bars and tests for existing officers, may also be expected in time to

ensure that fewer and more competent officers will be able to do the same amount of

work as more numerous and less competent officers at present. A committee styled the

"Staff and Allowances Committee" sat at the end of 1946, and one of its tasks was

to examine Government departments to ascertain whether there was any redundancy of

staff. That Committee found itself unable, for reasons fully stated in its report,

a copy of which is in your possession, to recommend any very extensive retrenchment,

although I am not inclined on that account to postpone consideration of measures

designed to secure immediate retranchment of staff where that is possible. The

best hope in this connection lies in pursuing the proposal to appoint an efficiency

expert which is dealt with in your telegram No. 660 of April 22nd, 1947, and

subsequent correspondence.

23.

My predecessor has on several occasions reported to you on the discontent

in the public service. The financial strain against which officers are working has

in no way diminished and the possibility of a strike cannot be discounted in this Encl. ___3_connection. I enclose a copy of a Special Branch report, in which will be found

details of meetings held by various civil service organisations to discuss the

advisability of strike notion. The current strike of employees of the dockyards

has already spread to sections of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, the Mechanical Repair

Depot of the Public Works Department and the mechanics employed by the Waterworks.