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Following is a question by the Hon Ip Wai-ming and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (April 6):
Question:
Recently, I have received complaints from a group of staff from the Labour and Welfare Bureau (LWB), including contract staff, indicating that their supervisors or department heads had demanded them to undertake uncompensated overtime work for long hours over an extended period of time. The complainants also alleged that whether or not they had worked overtime had been used as one of the criteria for appraising their performance or considering their promotion. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether LWB as well as the Labour Department (LD) and Social Welfare Department (SWD) within its purview, including the various offices and service units of these departments, have fully implemented the five-day week arrangement at present; if they have, of the actual situation; and the average weekly standard working hours of staff (both in civil service grades and in non-civil service grades) under the five-day week arrangement, with a breakdown by rank;
(b) whether LWB knows if it is common for LD and SWD staff to undertake uncompensated overtime work; of the average weekly hours of uncompensated overtime work undertaken by staff of various ranks; whether the department heads have issued related guidelines or instructions to the staff, indicating that uncompensated overtime work will be one of the criteria for appraising their performance and considering their promotion;
(c) whether LWB, being the policy bureau responsible for the study on standard working hours, has taken the lead in supervising and regulating the working hours of the staff of LD and SWD within its purview, so as to ensure that their staff can benefit from the five-day week arrangement, and that they only need to work according to standard working hours; if it has not, of the reasons for that; and
(d) whether LWB will focus on the problem of uncompensated overtime work undertaken by employees of various government departments or even those in different sectors in Hong Kong and conduct a dedicated survey, so as to obtain specific data for the forthcoming study on standard working hours; if it will, of the details; if not, the means through which LWB will obtain information on uncompensated overtime work undertaken by employees for the study concerned?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the Hon Ip Wai-ming's question is as follows:
(a) With the primary consideration of maintaining the overall level and efficiency of government services and under the four basic principles of no additional staffing resources, no reduction in the conditioned hours of service of individual staff, no reduction in emergency services, and continued provision of some essential counter services on Saturdays, the civil service has implemented the five-day week initiative in three phases since July 1, 2006. As at December 31, 2010, the number of staff (including non-civil service contract staff) working on a five-day week work pattern stood at around 87% of the total strength of LWB, LD and SWD.
The working hours of civil servants are determined having regard to the "conditioned hours of work" of the grades concerned. As five-day week is implemented with no additional staffing resources and no reduction in the conditioned hours of service of individual staff, the conditioned hours of work of staff before and after the implementation of the five-day week are the same. Of the staff (including non-civil service contract staff) in LWB, LD and SWD, over 94% are conditioned to work 44 hours per week, whereas the remaining staff are mainly conditioned to work 45 hours per week.
(b) Under the prevailing civil service policy, overtime work should be undertaken only when it is unavoidable, which means the duties to be performed at the time are essential and the duties must be performed at that time and cannot be deferred. Overtime work is at all times strictly controlled and kept to the absolute minimum as justified by operational requirements. Time off in lieu (TOIL) is the normal recompense for overtime work performed and may be granted subject to exigencies of service. Monetary compensation for overtime work performed may be approved only when granting of TOIL is impracticable within a reasonable period of time from the date when overtime work is performed. The above policy guidelines are closely followed in LD and SWD. Both departments do not have information on overtime work undertaken by their staff without compensation, nor is there any departmental instruction that the undertaking of overtime work without compensation would be taken into account in staff performance appraisal or promotion.
(c) As mentioned above, the conditioned hours of work of civil servants before and after the implementation of the five-day week are the same, while overtime work is at all times strictly controlled and kept to the absolute minimum.
(d) The policy study on working hours will cover the regimes and experiences of other places in regulating working hours; and the collection of information on working hours of different sectors in Hong Kong including overtime situation. At this stage, we are still examining ways to collect the relevant statistics.
Ends/Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Issued at HKT 12:52
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