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Following is a question by the Hon Howard Young and a written reply by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Miss Denise Yue, on the directorate staffing proposals in the Legislative Council today (June 7):
Question:
In an information paper submitted to the Establishment Subcommittee (ESC) of the Legislative Council in November last year, the Civil Service Bureau made a forecast of civil service directorate proposals for the 2005-06 Legislative Council session. At the same time, it emphasised that the number of posts involved was only an assessment made at that time. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) among the above estimated number of posts, of the respective numbers of posts already created, deleted, lapsed or extended, together with the titles of the posts concerned;
(b) whether it has so far revised the forecast of directorate proposals set out in the above paper; if so, of the details and reasons for that; and
(c) regarding the forecast of directorate proposals set out in the above paper, of the number of posts involved in the proposals which have not yet been submitted to ESC; and the estimated timeframe for submitting the proposals to ESC?
Reply:
Madam President,
In November 2005, the Administration submitted an information paper to the Establishment Subcommittee (ESC) of Finance Committee (FC) of the Legislative Council (LegCo) on the overall directorate establishment position. The paper enclosed a forecast of the creation/deletion of civil service permanent and supernumerary posts in the 2005-06 LegCo session. We emphasised in the information paper that the forecast was the best estimate at the time and that it was inevitable that unforeseeable circumstances might arise or proposals might take shape during the course of the year which would result in the creation or deletion of additional posts.
With regard to part (a) of the question, among the directorate staffing proposals we included in the forecast, the ESC/FC have approved the proposals to:
(a) create ten new permanent directorate posts (excluding upgrading/downgrading, transfer of posts, etc) and delete seven permanent directorate posts; and
(b) extend one supernumerary directorate post, create five supernumerary directorate posts and delete one supernumerary directorate post. Also, five supernumerary posts have lapsed without extension.
In addition, two staffing proposals involving the creation of one permanent directorate post and the extension of two supernumerary directorate posts were recommended by ESC on June 1, 2006 for FC's approval on June 23, 2006. Details are set out at Annex A.
With regard to parts (b) and (c) of the question, a summary of the revisions to the forecast is set out below:
(a) two directorate proposals included in the forecast have not been taken forward in the 2005-06 LegCo session;
(b) three directorate proposals included in the forecast but with revisions in the number of directorate posts created or deleted as approved by the ESC/FC; and
(c) before the end of the 2005-06 LegCo session, there will be four unexpected but urgent directorate proposals requiring the approval by ESC/FC but which have not been included in the November 2005 forecast. One of the proposals has been recommended by ESC on June 1, 2006 for FC's approval on June 23, 2006 while the remaining three will be submitted to the last ESC meeting of the 2005-06 LegCo session to be held on June 14, 2006. These four directorate proposals involve the creation of three additional permanent posts and four supernumerary posts.
The above directorate staffing proposals and the reasons for the revisions are set out at Annex B.
Ends/Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:01
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