TNAG-2668-FCO40-3865-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-1993 — Page 156

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Compensation scheme for P and P officers

21. The Government's Limited Compensation Scheme has a more direct effect on solving the Basic Law's senior posts problem than the non-renewal policy. Under this scheme, senior overseas officers employed on permanent and pensionable terms of service may be retired early with compensation for loss of benefits. The scheme also compensates for lost promotion opportunity. We do not oppose this scheme.

Overseas officer % already disproportionately low

22. It cannot be credibly argued that the non-renewal policy is necessary to bring a proportion of a minority population in the civil service up to the level of the general population as a whole. Persons of the Chinese race already constitute 98.8% of the civil service. This percentage exceeds the 95.3% Chinese portion of the general population. A policy that strives to increase that percentage would be viewed as xenophobic anywhere else in the free world. Even representation in the post 1997 Legislative Council permits a "foreign" element of up to 20% of the membership.

Policy confused

23. Indeed, the irony of the current policy is that it is not even achieving a significant reduction in overseas officers. The Government continues to recruit overseas officers to replace the ones it forces out. The exodus last year from the Legal Department has been followed by an equal influx of new overseas lawyers. All that has been achieved is that experienced officers have been replaced by inexperienced ones and that some local officers will have greater opportunities for promotion. This brings us back to the Bill of Rights issues. It is a clear violation. How can it be justifiable to remove competent, experienced employees merely so that other employees can get promotions?

The numbers game - How few is few enough?

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24. The Secretary for the Civil Service acknowledged on 18 March that the policy would become increasingly indefensible as the proportion of overseas officers declined, but attempted to defend the policy by saying that the number of overseas officers has remained fairly constant in recent years. This begs two questions. What number or proportion is acceptable? The Secretary said that had not been considered. The second question is why it was thought acceptable to disrupt the lives of persons already in service and replace them with other overseas officers, when the result achieves no reduction in the numbers. What is the point of the policy? Furthermore, the Bill of Rights seeks to protect individuals against actions of the state, not abstract numbers.