MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
6. The problem which is causing most concern among the Civil Service and Staff Associations at present is that of housing. Interest rates and land costs make it virtually impossible for a middle level civil servant without private means to own his own home. The Government are considering possible assistance schemes.
Expansion of Civil Service
7. Public servants in Hong Kong now number some 130,000. Even though this includes police, firemen etc, the Civil Service proper is still extremely large. In some cases, undue expansion can be avoided by setting up statutory corporations for particular jobs, such as the Mass Transit Railway. However, with a tightly knit community such as Hong Kong, this is not applicable in all cases. There has been very considerable expansion in recent years. This has led to gaps in a number of grades. These are most prominent in the middle areas, such as Staff Grade C. The demand is likely to grow and will cause further problems. There are also difficulties in certain specialised areas such as computer programmers.
8. So far as possible, the Government would like to meet these demands from their own resources, in particular in order to keep in step with the requirements of localisation. This will not however be possible in all cases. If, for instance, the City District Officer system is to be expanded and extended, the requirement for good middle grade administrators will be very high.
Staff exchanges with UK Civil Service
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9. In the light of these shortages, I discussed with the Secretary for the Civil Service and the Chief Secretary the possibility of filling some of the gaps from the UK. Obviously this cannot be done on a mass scale. It is particularly difficult to absorb civil servants from the UK at senior levels in Hong Kong. Generally it is best to take people in at a lower level and let them work themselves in. Nevertheless in some cases there may be places for British civil servants, including FCO officials to fill specialist jobs. One example could be the job in the Hong Kong Security Branch at present held by Mr Alan Mason as Secretary of the Local Intelligence Committee. This is a Grade 5 equivalent post.
10. We also discussed the possible effect of staff cuts in the UK and agreed that, while Hong Kong would not of course wish to take drop-outs, there might well be cases in which people with special skills became available who might be useful in Hong Kong. This could apply both to the DS and Home Civil Service. In the latter case, Hong Kong gave hospital administrators as an example of the sort of area in which they expect gaps.
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
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