TNAG-0992-FCO40-1211-Policy-on-salaries-and-pensions-for-civil-service-in-Hong-Ko-1980 — Page 273

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The Health Inspectors Training Board is a departmental board understandably concerned with raising the standards of the Health Inspectorate. As already indicated the records show that school certificate students are capable of achieving satisfactory results in the R.S.H. Diploma examinations. Moreover, we believe that if the revised training arrangements are introduced the quality of the trained Health Inspector should further improve.

Our conclusion therefore is that while it is reasonable for the Urban Services Department to recruit, as it does at present, a proportion of matriculants, a case has not been made for denying school certificate holders entry to the Health Inspector grade. However, educational qualifications are not the only factor in setting pay scales and we have also considered whether the duties and job content of Health Inspectors warrant any adjustment to their pay scales. In this respect our examination has brought to light an unsatisfactory situation relating to all grades with student ranks.

This arises from the system of setting pay scales for grades with student ranks on the basis of the educational qualifications required for entry to the training rank. The occupants of these ranks are in fact students undergoing training in a manner somewhat similar to that provided by tertiary educational institutions. Thus the situation exists where on the one hand students undergo training outside Government at their own expense, and enter the civil service at rates of pay set by the qualifications they then hold, while on the other hand occupants of student ranks are paid and trained by Government itself and on completion of their training enter a rank with pay scales influenced by the educational qualifications which they required to join the civil service as students. This is particularly unsatisfactory in the case of grades whose students require matriculation. The pay afforded to the student rank produces a situation where, after three years' training, the starting pay for the job is higher than that normally provided for a university graduate. In our opinion the pay scales of civil service grades should be set having regard to the qualifications required for the job undertaken by the fully trained officer. This is an area, therefore, where we shall be conducting a further review.

Finally, in view of the stress laid by the Health Inspectors on upgrading their entry qualification to matriculation, we feel we should draw attention to another issue which we have under consideration. In paragraph 34 of our Report No. 1, we mentioned that the gap between the school certificate and matriculation benchmarks, i.e. Point 5 for school certificate, and Point 16 for matriculation, appeared too large. That is to say that