TNAG-2668-FCO40-3865-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-1993 — Page 153

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Local/overseas terms of employment

11. When an employee is first employed by the Hong Kong Government, Civil Service Regulation 115 is used to determine the conditions of service under which he will be employed. The primary purpose of this CSR is to prevent local persons from being employed on overseas terms of service which are superior to local terms (in some respects!). Whether the superior terms are necessary to attract overseas applicants or whether those terms would be sufficient to attract local applicants does not seem to have been regularly reviewed.

CSR 115

12. CSR 115 reads as follows -

(1) A candidate who is

who is selected selected

appointment and -

for pensionable or agreement

(a) is not habitually resident in Hong Kong, Macau, China or Taiwan;

and

(b) has his general background or social ties somewhere other than

Hong Kong, Macau, China or Taiwan; and

(c) if appointed on local conditions, would suffer a material degree of dislocation or up-rooting from an environment to which he belongs

will be offered overseas conditions of service only.

(2) The status of an applicant must be established before he is offered appointment.

CSR 281

13. It is at the next stage of the policy where the problem arises. Under CSR 281, whether an officer employed on agreement terms is offered further employment at the end of his current agreement depends on -

(a) service need;

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(b) continued satisfactory conduct and efficient performance of his work; (c) continued physical fitness; and

(d) if he is an overseas officer, the lack of a qualified and suitable local

replacement.

Government refusal to allow conversion to local terms

14. If an officer caught by CSR 281(d) applies to convert to local terms of service, he receives a letter from the Secretary for the Civil Service which states -

Under CSR 115(2), the status of an officer must be established before he is offered appointment. A candidate who meets the criteria set out in CSR 115(1) will be offered overseas conditions of service only. Citizenship [whether Hong Kong or otherwise] is not one of the criteria for determination of overseas or local status. Once an officer's status has been established before his appointment, it cannot be changed.