Civil service chief: govt jobs not guaranteed for life
The civil service minister on Saturday said she believes a proposal to make it easier to get rid of poorly-performing government workers will encourage, not discourage, potential job applicants. Ingrid Yeung said it takes an average of 20 months to complete the dismissal process now, and the administration wants to streamline procedures so civil servants generally have only one period of performance monitoring to show that they can improve. The official said they are also reducing the number of times during the process during which public workers can express views on their work performance or their supervisors' assessments. Under the new system, Yeung said the dismissal process could be completed six months after the end of the performance monitoring period. The minister said the civil service was never supposed to guarantee jobs for life, and moving out poor performers benefits everyone. "We are now giving out a signal that we are serious about work performance, we are serious about dealing with those who cannot contribute to the civil service team," she said. "So those who have the intention of contributing their best to the civil service will find their work rewarding [and] their work, their performance will not be dragged down by team members who are not performing well." Yeung said she believed more cases will be handled with according to the mechanism after it has been simplified.  She said there had been 16 cases involving poor performance in the past five years, which had seen nine civil servants leave the government. Meanwhile, the minister said authorities were still considering whether a requirement for "political neutrality" would be deleted from the updated Civil Service Code. Yeung said government workers have to execute orders loyally no matter what their personal political beliefs are, and officials are thinking about how to clearly express the rule without giving rise to misunderstandings. She said officials were working on the amendments to the code, and hoped to launch a consultation this year.