Sessional_Paper_1948 — Page 41

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152.

CHAPTER VI

CONDITIONS OF SERVICE

SUMMARY OF REPRESENTATIONS

The main points on which representations were made to the Commis- sion regarding conditions of service were connected with the length of tour for overseas officers and with the sick leave regulations. Other representations for the revision or provision of certain privileges were in our opinion caused by the present inadequacy of emoluments generally and if the service is more adequately remunerated as the result of our recommendations, we think that there will be no substance in many of the pleas put forward to us.

LENGTH OF TOUR FOR ÖVERSEAS OFFICERS

153. Very strong representations were made by the European Civil Servants Council and by certain Heads of Departments against the existing length of tours of duty. It was not commonly suggested that the present length of tours was inimical to health or to efficient work; rather it appeared to us that officers were influenced chiefly by the shorter tours of duty normal in other Colonies. Two considerations influenced us towards the conclusion that only minor changes of leave rules for overseas officers were necessary.

(i) It is true that for four or five months in the year the climate of Hong Kong is bad, uncomfortable and enervating. There is no evidence that the incidence of sickness during the hot summer months is specially high: the climate at this season is trying rather than unhealthy. On the other hand the recuperative value of the long spell of relatively cool, dry weather is high. The climate for three or four months is good. It is not too much therefore to expect that men should work for longer tours of duty in Hong Kong than would be reasonable in the almost unchanging heat of Malaya. (ii) Hong Kong is very nearly as far away from Great Britain where most overseas officers wish to spend their leave as any spot on the globe and steamer and air plane fares necessarily are high. The long time involved in the sea voyage adds to the cost to Govern- ment. The cost in fares for an officer and his family would be so great that a radical change for all overseas officers would be justified only if there were convincing evidence of physical or mental harm consequent on the present length of tours. For younger officers such evidence was not forthcoming.

154. The present rule imposes a four year tour until an officer has attained the age of forty five and has completed twenty years service, after which the normal tour is three years. After consideration of the representations made we recommend that overseas officers should continue to Serve a four year tour until they attain the age of forty and have completed ten years service, and that thereafter the tour should be reduced to three years.

STUDY LEAVE

155. The implementation of the policy in regard to local recruitment necessarily implies that periods of study leave should be given generously in all appropriate cases. For the time being, the number of local officers who should require study leave may be relatively small. In any case, in these days, it is not easy for a man from overseas to obtain admission to professional and techni- cal courses of study in Great Britain, to which country, it is hoped, a man will naturally turn for the acquisition of knowledge and experience. But this question of study leave will acquire increasing importance with the lapse of

years.

156. We therefore make the following general recommendations on this matter:-

(i) To assist promising assistant professional officers to qualify by the acquisition of special experience or higher diplomas for promotion to the professional grade, the granting of study leave on the recom- mendation of a Head of Department at any time after such officers have completed five years service should be favourably considered.