ENG-1976 — Page 317

CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION

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Executive Council and Legislative Council-commonly referred to as the UMELCO office. City district officers and district officers in the New Territories also receive and investigate complaints. The absence of any statutory powers of investigation is offset by a lack of restriction on the type of complaint which UMELCO and the district and city district officers can receive and investigate. Both systems deal effec- tively with many grievances.

In addition, members of the Urban Council operate a ward system through which they receive complaints from members of the public and bring them to the attention of the appropriate government department or raise them formally in the Urban Council.

Civil Service

The civil service provides the staff for all government departments, sub-depart- ments and other units of the administration. As at April 1, 1976 the total number of posts in the civil service (or its establishment as it is generally called) was 114,139. The strength was 104,157 officers, of whom 101,581 were local officers and 2,576 were overseas officers.

This indicates that about one person in every 18 of the estimated adult working population in Hong Kong is employed by the government. There is a large proportion of labouring staff, and 38,829 of the total establishment of the civil service are labourers, semi-skilled labourers or artisans of one kind or another. The Hong Kong civil service is unusual in that it does some jobs which in other territories and administrations are done by people who do not belong to the civil service. In other territories, for example, staff for hospitals, public works and utilities, urban cleansing and public health, and the police, are not always servants of the central government. In Hong Kong, the establishment of the Medical and Health Department (15,595), the Public Works Department (15,319), the Urban Services Department (19,082) and the Royal Hong Kong Police Force (19,275) account for a total of 69,271 posts, or about 60 per cent of the total establishment of the service.

The service has grown from 17,500 in 1949 to about 68,000 in 1966 and now to more than 104,000. This reflects not only the continuing expansion of existing services, in line with the continuing expansion of the population, but also the development of new and more diverse services to meet the changing needs of the population.

The cost of the civil service is reflected in the expenditure on personal emoluments. For the year 1976-7, the estimated expenditure on personal emoluments, excluding pensions, is about $1,970 million. This represents about 37 per cent of the estimated recurrent expenditure included in the Budget.

The establishment of each post in the civil service requires the approval of the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council, assisted by the advice of its establish- ment sub-committee. The Finance Committee examines all requests for additional posts, both for new projects and to meet increasing workloads, to ensure that staff is properly utilised and that new posts are provided only when they are essential.