Joining Mr Lau in presenting awards were Assistant Commissioner (Personnel) Ng Tsui Fung-ying, Assistant Commissioner (Service Quality) Peter Morgan and Complaints and Internal Investigations Branch Chief Superintendent Lam Man-sai.

 

In his opening speech, Mr Lau congratulated the awardees and thanked them for participating in the Police Staff Suggestions Scheme. He re-iterated that the scheme, introduced in 1994, aimed at providing a platform and a communication channel for officers to put forward their suggestions and ideas for enhancing the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the Force. For the past 20 years, the scheme had gained the full support of Force members and received a total of 6,500 suggestions, a majority of which was constructive, pragmatic and feasible. He called on commanding officers to continue to motivate their officers to participate in the scheme.

 

Mr Lau also pointed out that the objectives of the Police Staff Motivation Scheme (PSMS), introduced in 1996, were to provide funding to Major Formations to organise activities to enhance staff awareness of the Force Performance Pledges; promote customer service culture and sense of belonging; encourage making improvements in performance and service quality; and attain efficiency and productivity.

 

Under the PSMS, Personnel Wing had launched the Force Challenge Coin Design Competition and Prudent Financial Management Writing Competition. The coin design competition provided Force members with an opportunity to optimise their creativity and design talents. The prize-winning designs will be used for producing a Force souvenir for retirees or official functions.

 

The writing competition underscored Personnel Wing's initiatives to promote financial prudence among Force members and their families. Thanks to officers' active participation in the two competitions, a total of 124 coin designs and 68 essays had been received. Thirty-five officers have won awards for individuals or teams, namely gold, silver, bronze awards and six merit awards for coin design competition and three merit awards for writing competition.

 

In addition, the Force Committee on Complaints Prevention has spearheaded a complaints prevention project, "Lighthouse", with a view to boosting frontline officers' professionalism in handling confrontational situations.

 

In the wake of heightened social awareness and more public expectations of the Force in terms of service quality and officers' professionalism, there has been a rising trend of members of the public video-recording daily incidents and posting the footage on social media. Therefore, the Force Committee on Complaints Prevention produced five videos on the themes of Public Order Events, Late Night Violence, Traffic Matters, Stop/Search & Stop/Questions, and Land Disputes for contestants to come up with solutions in their entries to the contest.

 

The response to the Project "Lighthouse" competition was encouraging, with a total of 36 videos and 14 scripts received. Seventeen entries were selected for gold, sliver, bronze and merit awards. Police College will refine the award-wining entries into training day package for frontline officers.