TNAG-0695-FCO40-845-Policy-on-salaries-for-civil-service-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 158

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Government's answers

(a) The strict guidelines to which the PIU works in

preparing independent reports have been laid down in consultation with the three major staff associations whose memberships cover practically all grades of Government. The quidelines and methods of operation are as foolproof as possible and have been modelled on those of the British PRU.

(b)

PIU surveys take into account all monies and perquisites given in the private sector and weights them against factors such as non contributory pensions, leave earnings and medical benefits which are normally more favourable in Government.

(c)

(a)

(e)

PIU reports are prepared by teams of officers knowledgeable about duties, responsibilities and conditions of service within Government who have been trained to search out and evaluate all relevant detail required from the private sector. Jobs are carefully evaluated against jobs.

It is agreed the PIU report on the Secretarial Class contains minor inaccuracies but these were noted by Civil Service Branch at the time the findings in the report were applied to Stenographers rates of pay and due allowances were made. There is no possibility of a major inaccuracy; a system of cross checks guards against this.

The PIU report contains information given by companies. In one case this was to the effect that the shorthand speed minimum requirerent of the company was 50 w.n.m. It was obvious to the survey officer that the jobs their employees were doing required a speed of double the minimum. This latter piece of information was not included in the report which gives only 'bare-bones' information, but it was of course taken into account when the company was included in the survey and led to the reporting officer's remark, hased upon the evaluations of all his survey officers, that the private sector normally demanded a higher standard of technical skills than did Government.

(E)

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