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Constitution and Administration

Council) and some 90 consultative committees at the departmental level. A Civil Service Newsletter is published regularly to provide an added link with serving and retired civil servants.

Staff commitment and performance are recognised through various commendation schemes to motivate the provision of high quality service to the public. Those schemes include the Secretary for the Civil Service's Commendation Award Scheme which commends individual civil servants with consistently outstanding performance, and the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme which commends achievements in service excellence on a department/team basis. On the other hand, staff misconduct is handled under the established disciplinary mechanism for punitive and deterrent purposes. To instil a culture of probity in the civil service, the Civil Service Bureau and the Independent Commission Against Corruption jointly run an ethical leadership programme, and each bureau and department is required to appoint a senior directorate officer to co-ordinate efforts to attain that goal.

The Civil Service Training and Development Institute (CSTDI) formulates policies on training and development, and performance management. It organises various training programmes for civil servants, including leadership and management courses, language and communication courses, national studies programmes at institutions on the Mainland, and seminars in Hong Kong on national affairs and the Basic Law. In addition, the CSTDI advises bureaus and departments on how to improve staff performance, develop competency profiles, enhance leadership capabilities and prepare officers for succession. The CSTDI's e-learning portal, Cyber Learning Centre Plus, also provides ready access to training resources to promote continuous learning among civil servants.

Official Languages

Chinese and English are Hong Kong's official languages. It is government policy to have a civil service that is proficient in written Chinese and English and conversant in Cantonese, Putonghua and spoken English. While important government documents are issued in both official languages, correspondence with individual members of the public is always in the language appropriate to the recipient.

The Civil Service Bureau's Official Languages Division helps implement the government's language policy and provides bureaus and departments with a wide range of language-related support. Besides translation, interpretation, drafting and editing services, the division operates language advice hotlines, compiles reference materials such as guides to official writing and glossaries of terms commonly used in the government, and organises language-related talks and competitions. It also produces Word Power, a quarterly publication on language and culture, for service-wide distribution.

Government Records Service

The Government Records Service (GRS) oversees the overall management of government records and provides a range of records and archival management services. GRS formulates records management policies, guidelines and procedures, develops records management systems and oversees their implementation. It sets records management standards, gives guidance and provides training to bureaus and departments on records management good

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