Not only eligible staff would benefit from the recently approved Voluntary Retirement Scheme, but also the Force with improvements to efficiency and cost effectiveness, a senior officer says.

On December 1, Government sought and obtained approval from the Legislative Council Finance Committee for the allocation of a supplementary provision of $1.7 billion to fund the VR scheme.

Welcoming the Committee's decision, Director of Finance, Administration and Planning Keith Kwok Ka-keung said: "This has enabled the Force to implement the VR scheme in full. All applications received from the eligible officers in the civilian grades of the Force will be approved."

Mr Kwok further announced that eligible officers who had applied for the Scheme were notified of their approval on December 12. However, he stressed that once an application for VR was approved, it was irrevocable and could not be withdrawn except in exceptional circumstances and with the approval of the Secretary for the Civil Service.

As of November 29, some 632 officers, or 10.4 per cent of the Force's civilian establishment, applied to retire voluntarily under the Scheme. They included 253 officers from the Clerical and Secretarial Grades, 254 from the Common Grades, 107 from the Departmental Grades and 18 from the other eligible General Grades.

Speaking of the arrangements for the release of officers under the Scheme, Mr Kwok said: "I detailed programme broken down by grade for the orderly release of staff has been worked out. The overriding objective is to ensure that the quality of service to the public will not be compromised as a result of the departures."

Voluntary retirement

"The actual release dates of individual officers are determined having regard to the operational requirements as advised by the relevant formation, and how the service of the officers will be replaced.

"Where service exigencies permit, the preferences indicated by staff have also been taken on board."

Staff would be released in batches next year. Some 117 officers would leave in January, the rest departing at the rate of about a dozen to 67 per month until December when the remaining 148 leave. Despite the departure of such a large number of civilian staff, Mr Kwok was confident that there would not be any adverse effect on the operation of the Force.

"Quite to the contrary, the VR Scheme is greatly welcome as a catalyst in facilitating the introduction of various measures to enhance the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the services in support of the Force," he said. "It is a relatively painless way to allow staff to retire prematurely as they may wish on the one hand, while creating room to speed up the contracting out of various services on the other."

For departmental grades and common grades, such as Police Translator, Foreman, Artisan, Workman and Cook, Mr Kwok said vacancies at the basic rank resulting from officers taking voluntary retirement would not normally be filled. Instead, every attempt would be made to contract them out.

"Past experience indicated the cost of contracting out could be as little as half the cost of providing the service in-house. So the amount saved in the long term as a result of contracting out could be up to $37 million a year."

Mr Kwok cited the cleaning of the Force's premises, catering, towing and translation as prime examples where contracting out was either underway or being launched, and said the outsourcing of such services would be sped up to tie in with the departure of staff under the VR scheme.

Mr Kwok said he was optimistic on the promotion prospects of remaining staff in the VR grades, saying: "The departure of officers in senior ranks will open up opportunities for junior ranks to fill their vacancies. While deletions of some of the posts in the senior ranks will be inevitable where workload does not justify their retention, we shall endeavour to ensure that there will be no deterioration in the promotion ratios as far as possible so as to maintain satisfactory promotion prospects for staff who choose to remain."

As for General Grade officers, Mr Kwok explained the difficulties in contracting out their services.

"It would be impracticable to replace a secretary to a senior officer or a confidential assistant in a safe care registry with staff from contractors," he said.

"Hence the policy is to replace them with civil servants from other Government departments through the standing inter-departmental transfer mechanism administered by the respective Heads of Grade. Where replacements cannot be arranged immediately, non-civil service contract staff will be engaged where appropriate to fill the gaps as an interim measure so that there will be sufficient manpower to do the work throughout the exercise."

Mr Kwok added: "We are very excited to see that we are now able to accelerate the contracting out of various services. At the same time, we shall handle the departure of staff and the replacement of their services through contracting out and posting of staff sensitively.

"We shall endeavour to meet the aspirations of staff regarding their retirement dates as far as possible, so long as they do not affect the quality of service to the public. There can be no question of the remaining staff having to share out the work of officers who retire under the Scheme. The work will either be contracted out or taken up by staff posted in to replace them, although some short-term acting appointments may be required."

Mr Kwok appealed to those chosing to remain in the VR grades for their continued effort and help in consolidating in-house services.

"There will be some redeployments and transfers between formations as a result of staff leaving under the VR and contracting out. In making the transfers, we shall apply the principle of 'last-in, first-out' flexibly, taking into account operational requirements as well as the place of residence and preferences of staff."

Concluding, Mr Kwok told OffBeat he was very positive about the success of the VR Scheme.

He said it allowed staff who would like to retire early the option to do so, the departure of staff in senior ranks would open promotion opportunities, the Force would achieve significant savings in its operation, and it would contribute towards Government's objectives of containing the size of the civil service and the Enhanced Productivity Programme, all in one go. "It is a win-win formula," he said.

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