TNAG-1642-FCO40-2289-Public-finance-in-Hong-Kong-Supplementary-Appropriation-(198-1987 — Page 269

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

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Date:

Time:

28.11.86.

8.30

12.30

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Reporter: PMO

are only markers intended for further staffing, printing, funding,

income etc. They cannot at that stage be taken as definitive,

particularly towards the end of the period of the forecast and they

do not involve at that stage any use or commitment of public funds. In May 1982 the Government without any warning substantially raised the first registration and yearly licence fees for private motor

cars, but this did not have an immediate effect on the rate of

increase of the issue of fixed penalty parking tickets that the bar

chart shows. However, in 1983, the total number of licensed motor

cars produced a drop. It fell from 180,000 to less than 160,000 and this produced a decrease in the issue of fixed penalty parking tickets in that year. Now, far from failing to react the Royal Hong Kong Police Force immediately reduced that estimate from 1987/88 figure down to 1.5 million in the next year to 1.2 million in the subsequent year and to 0.9 million in the latest forecast. I have

a summary of those forecasts which may assist. [Document distributed

to Committee] In view of these figures, I find it a little difficult

to understand why the Director of Audit has not included these

adjustments, preferring to highlight the 1983 estimate but not

indicating that that was based on the 1982 figures. May I now draw your attention to paragraph 104 in which it is alleged that

the cost of the surplus staff of the section in 1985 was about 23 $2.5 million. Let me make it clear that I do agree that a degree

of over-staffing was present in 1985 but as has been confirmed by

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a subsequent Organisation and Methods study which has been carried

26 out by Finance Branch, the surplus staff was not of the order alleged

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in the report and the costs involved were substantially less. In

1981 an O and M study was carried out into the staffing of Section D

of the Central Traffic Prosecutions Unit. This had been undertaken

at a time when the then computer system which was known as Automobile Registration/Fixed Penalty System or AR/FPS, was being replaced by the present computer system VALID II. That study

recommended a staff of 35 together with a further six to be known

34 as the write-off team. That team were provided for the purpose

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of writing off financially and legally tickets left outstanding from the AR/FPS. This latter exercise was cancelled by agreement with

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