Mr Hui said at the meeting: "While me must achieve five per cent savings over the next three years, this will be accomplished with absolutely no adverse effect to police service to the community. We will avoid redundancies. And, there is to be no significant depletion of any promotion ranks."

In fact, DCP MAN, as Chairman of the Force Establishment and Manning Committee, has given his assurance that the Force strategy for achieving a five per cent saving will be accomplished without violating these four principles set out by the Commissioner.

Said Mr Tsang: "During the Enhanced Productivity Programme we will not be targeting or victimising any particular grade or rank for action. EPP is not about cutting back or cutting posts. Rather, it is aimed at enhancing the Force's productivity all round and across the board. But in order to provide better efficiency, there's bound to be adjustments here and there. For example, some people may be busier than others. So we have to identify those less busy people to see if they can do more in order to make their jobs more interesting and fulfilling ¡Ð and to see if the post can be regraded.

"But we should take care not to arbitrarily cut posts which we perceive to be expendable, or to take the soft option of deleting only the backroom posts," Mr Tsang emphasised. "We must proceed with care and conduct efficiency reviews based on clear, logical principles. We must also encourage staff involvement in producing ideas for efficiency reforms.

The Force's approach to meeting the requirements of EPP over the long term will be to focus on identifying slack areas (reduction and regrading of posts where appropriate); streamlining procedures; a continuation of computerisation; civilianisation of posts not necessary to be filled by police; employment of non-civil service contract staff; out-sourcing of services and support functions; and reduction and deletion of unnecessary internal services, including services provided to other Governmental departments.

In the first phase of EPP, however, the Hong Police Force will begin to seriously set new limits on spending and create the right atmosphere for starting the search for practical short-term savings with the view to delivering five per cent savings in the three years starting on 1 April 2000 to April 2003. The Force proposes to deliver one per cent savings in the first year, two per cent in the second year, and two per cent in the third year.

All five Programme Managers (D Ops, D C&S, DPT, DMS and DFAP) in consultation with senior staff have already come up with their lists of initiatives for the first year, which have been endorsed by a SDG meeting chaired by CP.

"Initiatives aside, we all need to exercise the value-for-money and living-within-means concepts in our day-to-day management of our own finances. Phase one of EPP requires the delivery of quite significant savings," said DCP MAN, estimating them to be over $600 million.

Then again, acting responsibly in the normal day-to-day management of its resources is nothing new to the Force, which over the past few years has achieved remarkable success in a number of efficiency saving projects.

For example, in 1996/97 the Force reduced $50 million Aux SD Quota to fund 258 regular PC posts.

In 1997/98, a revision of Marine's duty shift patterns saved $64 million DSOA for the creation of 314 additional PC posts.

The 1998 Amalgamation of EPD with Border District yielded $48 million DSOA savings for creating 235 PC posts.

In the same year, DSOA savings from CID and UB amounting to $70 million partially funded the JPO salary review, which costs $112 million a year.

Furthermore, in 1998 the money saved in contracting out of PTS's catering was used to create 26 other much needed posts elsewhere including three additional Force Clinical Psychologist posts.

In effect, the Force has already been practising EPP ¡Ð and with great success. Which is why the Commissioner of Police is confident that the Force can reach its EPP commitment, while at the same time enhancing its services to the public.

THE new One-Line-Vote system is basically the devolving of financial authority from central Government to Police Headquarters, and as such DCP MAN at the PTS briefing on Force implementation of EPP told Major Formation Commanders and Chief Superintendents not to overly worry about it because it is primarily PHQ's responsibility.

The One-Line-Vote system will start on 1 April 1999 (one year before EPP), and will serve as a warm up exercise.

Simply put, "One-Line-Vote" means that once the Force has been allocated its annual budget, it is up to the Force how it spends that money. That is, the Force's Financial Controller will be able to vire money to and from the different votes as and when such action becomes necessary without having to seek permission to do so.

At present, the annual resource allocation to the Force is placed under different sub-heads and categories, with instructions not to mix up these funds which are given for specific, different purposes. To transfer already allocated money somewhere else required approval from different levels of authority depending on the amount of money involved. The authority could be CP, Secretary for Treasury, Financial Secretary or LegCo's Finance Committee.

The new One-Line-Vote arrangement means that all the money given to the Force will be placed in one spot and can be used for whatever purposes needed without approval from authority outside the Force. All in all, this will bring much greater flexibility and efficiency in the management of Force finances. The only downside is that central Government will not come up with any more money on top of that which has been annually allocated.

CP has decided that the One-Line-Vote system will go down to District Commander (or equivalent) level. Briefings and training will be provided by the Financial Controller and her staff, and a help desk will be opened to answer any enquiries.

Said DCP MAN: "To make matters simple for everybody, we will not require annual budgeting from One-Line-Vote holders. Therefore, if you do not want to do anything, things will remain as they are now. There will be no additional work involved. Doing nothing, however, may not be the best option, as there are bound to be areas of spending where you can save money ¡Ð and those savings can be put to better use at your discretion. There is co-ordination at MFC and PHQ level. Proposals for change should be thought out at the beginning of the year so that we can examine them collectively to ensure consistency of development within the Force.