It takes two years to dismiss a civil servant? Hong Kong plans to simplify the process and reduce it to several months. | Civil servant | Time
According to Hong Kong media reports, the Civil Service Bureau of the Special Administrative Region Government proposed last week to simplify the mechanism for handling underperforming civil servants. The Director of the Civil Service Bureau, Yang Hebei, stated yesterday that in the future, the processing time for civil servants will be reduced from an average of over a year or even more in the past to several months, while also continuing to provide sufficient opportunities for parties to express their opinions.
Yang Hebeiyin stated that the current procedures for handling civil servants are too complicated and lengthy. Therefore, the government proposes to simplify procedures while ensuring the principle of fairness and justice. She stated that simplifying procedures is a response to the policy address's call for strengthening civil servant management. The policy address mentioned that "if civil servants with consistently poor job performance continue to fail to improve after supervision and assistance, their employment should be terminated in a timely manner.".
"This is a key measure to further improve the management of civil servants," Yang Hebeiyin said, hoping that this move can maintain the professionalism and efficiency of the civil servant team, thereby enhancing governance efficiency.
According to current regulations, for civil servants whose work performance has not been up to standard for a long time, persuasion, training, and even transfer should be given first; If the standards are not met, an observation period will be established, and the employment will only be terminated if the standards are not met. During this period, relevant personnel will have four opportunities to appeal and an independent committee will be established by the department to provide opinions to the department head.
![It takes two years to dismiss a civil servant? Hong Kong plans to simplify the process and reduce it to several months. | Civil servant | Time](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/77f5fc61b0586f55b17f30c17825f6de.jpg)
Yang Hebeiyin mentioned that in the past, some departments were hesitant to handle unqualified civil servants and extended the observation period multiple times, sometimes by one to two years. "This would lose relevant significance, and in most future cases, the observation period will not be extended to accelerate the process.". She said that keeping underperforming civil servants within the government would affect team morale and cooperation spirit, and undermine morale; On the contrary, if handled quickly, it will increase the attractiveness to young people, let them know that there will be room for improvement, and they will not be burdened by problematic colleagues.
The Civil Service Bureau of the Special Administrative Region has consulted with the Civil Service Commission on the above measures, with the goal of announcing the implementation of new procedures and content to all civil servants within this year.