TNAG-1854-FCO40-2629-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 213

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

18 January 1989 香港立法局 ——————————一九八九年一月十八日

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given to research and development. Nevertheless, I think that the overall service has not been too badly affected. As far as social workers are concerned, the caseload volume per social worker clearly cannot be reduced as fast as we would like for family service workers, probation officers, and medical social workers, and staffing of some group work units is also insufficient. I might say, Sir, that as a result social workers are working overtime to try to fill the need there and we are looking at transferring other social workers from other parts of the department to make sure the services to the public do not suffer too much.

MR. PETER WONG: Sir, in the second paragraph of his reply the Chief Secretary talks about the small amount of additional growth. Can the Chief Secretary please tell us what the absolute growth in 1988 was and what he expects the growth to be in 1989?

CHIEF SECRETARY: Sir, I do not have the exact figures with me. My understanding is that it is likely to be around 2%. We have not yet got the final figures for 1988. I will provide the rest of the information to Mr. WONG separately, Sir. (Annex II)

MR. MARTIN LEE: Sir, what does the Government think are the reasons for such a high wastage rate in these particular areas, and how do they compare with the pattern in the last few years?

CHIEF SECRETARY: Sir, it is difficult to give the exact reasons for the high vacancy rate. It is a mixture of increasing the number of people within the Government, the posts, and the time it takes to recruit them. That is certainly the case in both the grades that I have mentioned. We are expanding both these services at quite a rate and it is quite difficult to recruit in the private sector in a buoyant private sector situation. As far as wastage is concerned, Sir, the figures show that the two major reasons for wastage are: move to the private sector, which clearly is a very strong factor in terms of the analyst programmers who are in very short supply in the private sector, and emigration. Those seem to be the two major factors in the equation.

MRS. FONG: On a more general basis, can I ask the Administration whether department heads have the authority to authorize overtime on a pay basis in order to get the work done because of the shortage? This is because accrued leave are not very attractive when staff shortages make it impossible for individual officers to take leave.