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Three Members referred to the City District Officer scheme. Suggestions were made for absorbing City District Officers into the ward system and that C.D.O.s be instructed to give up handling personal cases. I do not favour either of these courses.
Mr. James Wu suggests that ward Members should operate from City District Offices and that my department should provide staff to assist Members. I do not think such an arrangement would enhance the effectiveness of the ward system and I fear it would lead to confusion in the minds of the public. The ward system is intended as one way of helping Members to make themselves accessible to the public, as I understand it. It naturally requires more than just the willingness of Members themselves to make it work since staff and a place to work from are obviously needed. The Urban Services Department already provides assistance to Members in this matter and if these facilities are not considered satisfactory by Members, then in my view the proper action would seem to be to ask the Urban Services Department and not my Secretariat to improve these facilities.
Mr. Wu quite rightly lays stress on the differences between Unofficial Members of this Council and officers of the Civil Service who work in my department as regards relations with the public and with departments. These differences are fundamental. To amalgamate ward offices and City District Offices would lead to confusion and misunderstanding on the differing nature of their work. Both classes of person have concern for ordinary people and their problems but their ways of working and their constitutional position are different. I am sure it would not be the wish of this Council that arrangements for housing and staffing ward offices should fail to recognize these essential differences.
I turn now to Mr. BERNACCHI's proposal that City District Officers should cease seeing individual members of the public in order to help them handle their personal problems. To give some measure of the work he is proposing should be shifted from C.D.O.s to, presumably, ward offices, Members may wish to know that during November this year the average number of personal problems of this kind handled in each City District Office appears to have been about four times the number handled in an average ward office during the same month. That is, of course, to be expected when comparing a permanent functioning office with one which is not in permanent session. Of course not all of these were in the nature of complaints or appeals; but the figure indicates the approximate volume at the present time of what I would call personal problems, as opposed to ordinary enquiries of which more than 1,300 are dealt with every working day at the S.C.A.'s public enquiry counters.
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Mr. BERNACCHI makes this proposal because he says City District Officers cannot handle complaints of injustice: and here I presume he is referring to administrative injustice rather than to matters with judicial implications. He is entitled to his opinion, and I hope he will draw to my attention any case where he considers the system has failed. I do not share his opinion, for it amounts to the assertion that when faced with a case in which it is alleged there has been some administrative error or injustice, every Council Member will give a decision as good as or better than a decision by any Civil Servant, however experienced, and irrespective of whether the matter complained of falls inside or outside this Council's responsibilities. The fact that an Urban Councillor or a City District Officer does not have, as a statutory right, access to files dealing with matters for which he is not responsible does not necessarily mean either that an injustice has been done or that it is impossible to convince a complainant that justice has been done, or that a mistake cannot be put right or an injustice righted. The Government machinery to which Mr. BERNACCHI refers is not a piece of mechanical equipment but an organization of people—people who can, and do, legitimately lay a claim to integrity in their dealings with their fellows. It is upon this integrity and upon the readiness of all senior Civil Servants to go into personal cases brought to their attention that we rely in the C.D.O. scheme, so far as individual complaints or requests are concerned.
Having said this I should add that I certainly do not wish my officers to be overwhelmed with individual problems and thus prevented from addressing themselves positively and constructively to wider questions, the solution of which might go far to remove the need for the individual citizen to seek personal assistance in his dealings with the Government. But it has been a tradition of my department for over 100 years that anyone who feels puzzled or aggrieved by the workings of the Government as they affect him personally may come to my Secretariat and ask for explanations or redress. This is not a tradition which I would wish to break as long as any demand for the service exists, and especially not at a time when we are making efforts to bring up to date the channels through which such approaches may be made.
In the same context Mr. BERNACCHI described the C.D.O.s as junior officers. I do not wish to be technical on the subject of rank or still less to discuss personalities but shall just say that the posts of City District Officer are for Administrative Officers and Senior Administrative Officers, from which rank promotion is normally to the level of Assistant Director of a department. These are not junior posts. If Mr. BERNACCHI questions the maturity of the officers, then I can only point out that of the nine City District Officers now serving only three were appointed at an age of less than 30, and I refer to this particular age of 30, Sir, because I think it was at the age of 30 that Mr. BERNACCHI first took his seat upon this Council. (Laughter).
I found Mr. Woo Po-shing's remarks on the C.D.O. scheme more helpful and I believe they may reflect more accurately the consensus
Page 221 of 243
Page 221 of 243
354
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Three Members referred to the City District Officer scheme. Suggestions were made for absorbing City District Officers into the ward system and that C.D.O.s be instructed to give up handling personal cases. I do not favour cither of these courses.
Mr. James Wu suggests that ward Members should operate from City District Offices and that my department should provide staff to assist Members. I do not think such an arrangement would enhance the effectiveness of the ward system and I fear it would lead to confusion in the minds of the public. The ward system is intended as one way of helping Members to make themselves accessible to the public, as I understand it. It naturally requires more than just the willingness of Members themselves to make it work since staff and a place to work from are obviously needed. The Urban Services Department already provides assistance to Members in this matter and if these facilities are not considered satisfactory by Members, then in my view the proper action would seem to be to ask the Urban Services Department and not my Secretariat to improve these facilities.
Mr. Wu quite rightly lays stress on the differences between Unofficial Members of this Council and officers of the Civil Service who work in my department as regards relations with the public and with depart- ments. These differences are fundamental. To amalgamate ward offices and City District Offices would lead to confusion and misunder- standing on the differing nature of their work. Both classes of person have concern for ordinary people and their problems but their ways of working and their constitutional position are different. I am sure it would not be the wish of this Council that arrangements for housing and staffing ward offices should fail to recognize these essential differences.
I turn now to Mr. BERNACCHI's proposal that City District Officers should cease seeing individual members of the public in order to help them handle their personal problems. To give some measure of the work he is proposing should be shifted from C.D.O.s to, presumably, ward offices, Members may wish to know that during November this year the average number of personal problems of this kind handled in each City District Office appears to have been about four times the number handled in an average ward office during the same month. That is, of course, to be expected when comparing a permanent functioning office with one which is not in permanent session. Of course not all of these were in the nature of complaints or appeals; but the figure indicates the approximate volume at the present time of what I would call personal problems, as opposed to ordinary enquiries of which more than 1,300 are dealt with every working day at the S.C.A.'s public enquiry counters.
Mr. BERNACCHI makes this proposal because he says City District Officers cannot handle complaints of injustice: and here I presume he is referring to administrative injustice rather than to matters with judicial
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
355
implications. He is entitled to his opinion, and I hope he will draw to my attention any case where he considers the system has failed. I do not share his opinion, for it amounts to the assertion that when faced with a case in which it is alleged there has been some administrative error or injustice, every Council Member will give a decision as good as or better than a decision by any Civil Servant, however experienced, and irrespective of whether the matter complained of falls inside or outside this Council's responsibilities. The fact that an Urban Council- lor or a City District Officer does not have, as a statutory right, access to files dealing with matters for which he is not responsible does not necessarily mean either than an injustice has been done or that it is impossible to convince a complainant that justice has been done, or that a mistake cannot be put right or an injustice righted. The Govern- ment machinery to which Mr. BERNACCHI refers is not a piece of mechanical equipment but an organization of people—people who can, and do, legitimately lay a claim to integrity in their dealings with their fellows. It is upon this integrity and upon the readiness of all senior Civil Servants to go into personal cases brought to their attention that we rely in the C.D.O. scheme, so far as individual complaints or requests are concerned.
Having said this I should add that I certainly do not wish my officers to be overwhelmed with individual problems and thus prevented from addressing themselves positively and constructively to wider questions, the solution of which might go far to remove the need for the individual citizen to seek personal assistance in his dealings with the Government. But it has been a tradition of my department for over 100 years that anyone who feels puzzled or aggrieved by the workings of the Government as they affect him personally may come to my Secretariat and ask for explanations or redress. This is not a tradition which I would wish to break as long as any demand for the service exists, and especially not at a time when we are making efforts to bring up to date the channels through which such approaches may be made.
In the same context Mr. BERNACCHI described the C.D.O.s as junior officers. I do not wish to be technical on the subject of rank or still less to discuss personalities but shall just say that the posts of City District Officer are for Administrative Officers and Senior Administra- tive Officers, from which rank promotion is normally to the level of Assistant Director of a department. These are not junior posts. If Mr. BERNACCHI questions the maturity of the officers, then I can only point out that of the nine City District Officers now serving only three were appointed at an age of less than 30, and I refer to this particular age of 30, Sir, because I think it was at the age of 30 that Mr. BERNACCHI first took his seat upon this Council. (Laughter).
I found Mr. Woo Po-shing's remarks on the C.D.O. scheme more helpful and I believe they may reflect more accurately the consensus
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