Straight Talk presenter Eugene Chan (left) interviews Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Poi-yan on TVB, July 18 2023. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Poi-yan is on the show this week.
Yeung says Hong Kong civil servants have been improving and listening more to different views over the years. She also says the government, in order to compete for talent, has now been recruiting potential candidates before they graduate from the university in their penultimate year of study.
Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Ingrid Yeung.
Chan: Good evening! Thank you for joining us on Straight Talk. Our guest this evening is the Secretary for the Civil Service, Ingrid Yeung. Yeung started her civil service career as an Executive Officer in 1986. And since then, she has served in various bureaus and departments. She was the Permanent Secretary for Education in 2017. Her last post prior to taking up this political appointment was Permanent Secretary for Civil Service. As the secretary for civil service, we have asked her to talk to us about whether Hong Kong people are fair to our civil servants. Welcome, Ingrid.
Yeung: Hello, Eugene.
Chan: Before we start, we must acknowledge your team of civil servants for the hard work during the pandemic.
Yeung: Thank you.
Chan: We all know the civil servants play a crucial part in the functioning of our society. And it was clearly demonstrated in the pandemic. And I know some of your team has actually gone to different parts of the actual workflow, like contact-tracing, helping out in testing centers, I think a lot of Hong Kong people actually do appreciate your hard work. So, I thought it feels that it's appropriate to acknowledge your team of servants in this juncture.
Yeung: Thank you. Thank you very much. That's our responsibility. But we've also gone out of our usual work, the remit of our usual work to do more during the pandemic, to have it ended as soon as possible.
Chan: Right, Secretary, maybe you could give us a background of what actually is civil service? How many people do you actually have and how many levels of work and how is your structure? I think a lot of viewers, I mean, even for people like myself, who has served us different government boards and committees, sometimes we are not 100 percent, in grasp of what's happening, maybe you can take this opportunity to tell us what exactly is under your team, and what do you do, and how do you delegate them to work efficiently?
Yeung: The civil service has a big establishment, we have an establishment of over 190,000. So, it's really… Hong Kong is really the biggest employer in Hong Kong. The government is really the biggest employer in Hong Kong. There are a huge variety of civil service jobs, civil servants are placed in over 70 government departments and bureaus. And there are over 400 civil service grades, so called grades, a civil service grade is a sort of, you can say that people in the same grade share the similar duties, or have similar training, they work, they do similar jobs. So, an example is the medical and health officer grade in the government, all of them are doctors, they do professional work. Another example is Administrative Officer. This is the grade from which I come. Administrative officers are what we call belong to what we call general grade. They do not stay forever in one department but are posted around government departments regularly doing managerial jobs, doing policy formulation jobs and so on. So, we have really a lot of different jobs in the government.
Chan: Right, Secretary, I think for a lot of Hong Kong people, they have a sort of perceptions of certain jobs. One very common comment that we heard about civil servants are they are widely regarded to having an unbreakable iron rice bowl. And not only that, people do say that they just wait to get their pay at the end of the day, and no extra work. And the teamwork is not very strong. It's a lot of bureaucracy. And there's typical statements, “it's not my job, you better go to another department”. I'm sure you hear that all the time. I mean, you being worked through the ranks and now you being the secretary. Are these so-called myths? Or are these comments fair or a thing of the past?
Yeung: This so called ‘”iron rice bowl” is ...
Chan: Unbreakable.
Yeung: … Unbreakable Yes, it because it's made of iron. It’s a big myth, it's furthest from reality that I can think of. What is the implication behind this saying is that civil service jobs, have no requirements on performance or conduct. A civil servant can perform in whatever way he or she likes. A civil servant can conduct himself in whatever way he or she likes, and still be paid, and still be given his or her job. This is not the truth. This is not the reality. We do have requirements on our civil servants, we have performance requirements, we have conduct requirements on our servants. And if a civil servant fails to meet these requirements, seriously, or consistently, there will be consequences of all sorts, the worst of which is termination of service. So, civil service jobs are not “iron rice bowls”.
Chan: Not anymore?
Yeung: Well, not in the past, and all the more not now, because we are tightening up civil service management, I have to admit that there are areas in civil service management that needs improving. As I said, the Civil Service is a big establishment, civil servants are dispersed around many departments and bureaus. So, there may sometimes be inconsistency in standards and decisions on civil servants, even personnel decisions, they are decisions, public administration decisions. So, we've got to have procedural propriety in making those decisions. We've got to make the decisions rationally and reasonably. And these decisions can be subject to judicial review. So, we've got to go through a proper process in coming to these decisions. And that is why some people criticize the government for being too slow in dealing with substandard performance or the civil servants should misconduct themselves. And I see that there are there is room for improving the efficiency. But the procedure, the procedure that ensures fairness, that ensures reasonableness cannot be compromised.
Chan: Secretary in the last 20 years, I know the… from what I understand the civil service headcount hasn't really increased. But if you look at the population, and the number of work that we have to do has obviously multiplied many times. So, do you still have to… do you have enough people or manpower to do the job said needs to be delivered at a certain time.
Yeung: There are many more demands on the government now. But there are also developments on other fronts, development in technology, for example, technology can now do the work of many people who… and at a much more efficient pace, you cannot imagine, one can now just fill in an application form online, press a button, and then the information will go to the computer system and have it processed and what the member of the public is applying for will be given to him or her; fee-paying, you'll no longer have to go to an office, to go to the shroff to have it paid, you can just press a button and then the transactions behind will all be done. And so, there are technological developments that we should I think embrace, and the manpower that we can save from using technology from applying technology in delivering service can be meaningfully deployed elsewhere.
Chan: Yes, Secretary, coming from my colleagues in the medical health department, they were saying to me that they're using, for example, they treat the customers, they would use the word clients. So, when you use the word, clients that mean you have to customer service to them. And I'm sure if we have young people watching the show right now, they thought that to go Civil Services, I mean, it's quite an easy job and there's not much pressure. But I mean, I beg to differ because there is demand from the public. There's also demand from your superiors, would you say that being a government servant, a civil servant now is quite a reasonably high pressure job?
Yeung: It is. But without pressure, we won't improve, right? Every job has his own pressure. And I think it's for us to manage that pressure is for us to embrace that pressure and turn it into a source of strength for us to improve.
Chan: I also hear one comment they said that since the civil servants are quite well-paid. This is part of the package to take up the criticism from the public. Do you agree?
Yeung: I do not quite agree to see civil servants pay and to see criticism from a public from that angle. I think members of the public will have their views on our performance. And we should take those views and consider them objectively, consider them with an open mind, see which are made fairly, which are made out of misunderstanding and improve in areas where we can make improvements. For the pay package, our policy is to have a pay package that enables us to get the right person for the right jobs and allow our pay to be, on the whole, generally comparable with private sector pay. So, I don't think we should see it that way to see that the pay is you're already paid for taking such criticisms.
Chan: Secretary, I know Hong Kong people are very reasonable, we know that we have a large workforce that you said, 190,000 headcounts. And I heard that we’re ranked fairly highly in the world as well. So, what can we expect more from our civil services?
Yeung: I think it's only fair to expect the civil services to move with the times, to… as I said, when there is new technology to embrace technology to deliver service in a more efficient way; and also to anticipate changes in the world, you know, the world is changing very fast, and many of these changes are impacting Hong Kong, it's only fair to expect the civil service to be able to anticipate changes to avoid adverse impact on Hong Kong. And to maximize opportunities to bring Hong Kong to a high level.
Chan: We should all do that. Secretary, let's take a break now. And we will be right back.
Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Poi-yan (right) attends the Straight Talk show on TVB, July 18, 2023. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Chan: Thank you for staying with us. We have the Secretary for Civil Service with us this evening, and she has been correcting some of the myths and perceptions Hong Kong people have about civil servants. So, Secretary, in the first half, you did talk about the overall structure of civil servants, the “iron rice bowl” isn’t that unbreakable anymore. And all of them are having strong leadership from the Chief Executive and other secretaries. So, one area that this government has stressed on is the performance, sort of kind of called result-oriented governing principles, so we call KPI, key performing index. So, how do… I mean you being the chief of all the manpower, I mean how do they feel, how does your teammates react to this new approach? Are they welcoming to that? Or they feel a lot of pressure?
Yeung: Actually in the past, we also have performance pledges. If you look at the estimates, this document that we call “controlling officer’s report,” which every head of department has to compile for the annual estimates, there are performance pledges set, the civil servants of that department have to perform up to a certain standard. Now we are sharpening this requirement, bringing in the KPIs. The KPIs are not for individual civil servants, it is for the entire department, or even for a group of departments to achieve a certain objective, to have something materialized by a certain time. So, it is really for or the whole team, instead of for individual civil servants. We are all very encouraged by having these milestones set out because we can work our schedule towards that milestone. We can put our resources to the place where the resources should be put, to achieve that effect. So, on the whole it isn't something that creates extra pressure, but I think it actually has a positive effect on the civil servants.
Chan: Right. So, that being the case, you mentioned a couple of times of the advance of technology, plus this performance index kind of giving you a push. Will you call that it kind of reduces the red tape or produce more efficiency and results, in your opinion?
Yeung: It certainly produces more efficiency and positive outcomes. As for red tape, you mentioned earlier in this program that sometimes government departments will say that this is not my work, you go to another department. I have to admit that there have been such phenomenon, but right now we are emphasising teamwork and team spirit, and then we are working to reduce such phenomenon. The departments have their own remits, have their own responsibilities, and there are things that one department cannot do…
Chan: Right.
Yeung: …cannot do in place of another department. But in dealing with members of the public, we are advocating more helpful attitude, if it is not what a department… it is not within a department’s responsibility, the department could point a direction to that member of the public. Or if it is not within a particular team’s work, but it is another team’s work, one can provide more information, telephone numbers, emails, websites, and so on.
Chan: Let me ask you a very philosophical question: the civil service embraces scrutiny and criticism, just like any big organizations. And how can we strike a balance between holding our civil servants accountable and actually ensuring that… while they are ensuring that they are being treated fairly and recognise their hard work, how do you do that?
Yeung: We have, internally, we have appraisal reports. Apart from probationists, whose performance must be assessed half-yearly, all civil servants have their performance assessed annually. Internally, the supervisors of civil servants do assess them: how well do they perform, how good is their attitude, how well is their commitment, and how good are their actual abilities in doing their jobs, and how good are their potentials. That is one thing, we do have to this assessment. And so the poor performers will be appropriately assessed and will get lesser promotion opportunities. Or even a civil servant performs in low standard consistently, then there needs to be management actions taken. For members of the public, and there are also other statutory bodies, like the Ombudsman, and others like the Equal Opportunities Commission, and so on and so forth, that looks at government departments and also other public bodies, and points out where they have not been following principles or doing their job really well. And I think nowadays, we are very open to receiving suggestions, even criticisms or recommendations from these bodies. And we do treat them as a push for us to do our job better.
Chan: Right. Ingrid, I am sure the viewers, by now, watching what you have been telling them, they are going to ask you this question: he says or she says… they will say “right, we understand that you are doing your best, and we have to be understanding. But how can we ensure our views are being communicated, say to someone like yourself, so that you know what is happening?” The so-called transparency, how can we make the transparency better, so that all the misunderstandings can be reduced, the best being avoided, so that Hong Kong can be more united to face our issues ahead, which are a lot of challenges? How do they actually reflect to you effectively?
Yeung: I have been a department head myself, I have headed a department myself. When I was the department head, I actually read all the emails, all the letters addressed to me, before sending them out to my staff for further action. And so I had to do this every day, in order not to hold up the letters, the emails, and so on. I know many many department heads do take views from members of the public very seriously. Of course, a department head cannot spare the time to answer each and every question by himself or herself, each and every email, each and every letter. He or she has to delegate this to his or her staff. But views from members of the public are taken very seriously. Views reflected in the media are also taken very seriously. And all these views together, they give department heads a very good idea of how the department’s teams is performing on the ground. And where there are room for improvement, the department will certainly take actions to improve. Right now, the social media or you know again technology has advanced to a stage where small things happening on the ground can be known very quickly within a very short period of time. So, there is no hiding from mistakes made, there is no hiding from substandard performance. So, we need to take that very seriously.
Chan: Right. Ingrid, it is very reassuring when you say that there is no hiding. I know many of the civil servants are very committed because it’s the Hong Kong people’s attitude. But we see a sudden increase in resignation rate recently, it hit a 14-year high, and we have lost 4.8 percent and 5.9 percent of your team in the last two financial years. And the most worrying part is that those in their 30s, the amount of people leaving has tripled to the amount of 1,300. So, in your view, in short, we are nearing the end of the show, what is the problem? Is it because of so-called, what I read in the news, they have to swear allegiance to the government or uphold to the Basic Law? Is that the reason why? And how are you going to counteract with the loss of manpower? There is a lot of work to do.
Yeung: We have to look at the bigger picture first. In the past 2 years, Hong Kong has seen a net outflow of working population. We lost some 140,000 working manpower, so the civil service is inevitably affected. We can see that private sector employers are now much more aggressive in their recruitment. And local graduates are very keenly sought after now, much more keenly sought after than in the past. So, we have also redoubled our recruitment effects. In June this year, we have announced, just less than 2 months ago, we have announced that students in their penultimate year of studies are also now eligible to apply for civil service jobs, and they will get a conditional offer. And the most important condition is, of course, they graduate, they get their degree, in the time frame …
Chan: Will that reduce the standard?
Yeung: That won’t reduce the standard. We are using the same standard to assess the applicants, only that we allow those who are in their penultimate year of study to apply, to be applicants as well. That gives us more certainty, not this year, but in the next year, as to the number that will be coming to take up our jobs. And we have also been doing more aggressive publicity of civil service jobs and aggressive recruitment in the mainland, as well as overseas.
Chan: Right. Secretary, last question I am going to ask you: Hong Kong people is very fair, keep on saying that all the time, we know that the civil servants are having their pay frozen for the last 2 years, and recently they have a 2.5 percent increase. How happy are they? Are they satisfied?
I think by and large civil servants are satisfied. There are some views from, especially those who are more senior, that the increase, the adjustment this year have not matched up to the increase in the private sector. But we have explained that in the government, we have got to consider a number of factors, including the company's financial position, the adjustment in cost of living, and so on. So, this is the best balance that the government can take this year, and I think most civil servants have accepted this adjustment.
Chan: Thank you, Ingrid, for sharing with us the latest development in the civil service, and how our civil servants have demonstrated their continuing commitment to serve the people of Hong Kong. Have a good week ahead and see you next time.
