Civil service work plan explained

July 19, 2020

Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip:

As regards the working arrangement for civil servants, we have been monitoring the epidemic situation very closely. I think the experience in the past six months tells us that it's always a balance among three things. First is the epidemic situation, second is the impact on the economic activities and people's livelihood and the third is the public's reaction. 

Now as far as the Government is concerned, provision of public services of course is our priority and the public is expecting us to do so. So actually, as early as last Sunday, because of the rising local cases, my bureau has already issued reminders to all the bureaus and departments reminding them to put in place and enforce vigorously all the prevention measures, infection control measures and social distancing measures in the bureaus and departments in order to provide public services as far as possible.

And also now we have sufficient supply of masks, protective equipment, and also measures in the offices as regards the partitions and all that. So that's why we continue with this provision of public services. At the same time, we have already introduced staggered working hours and lunch hours, cancellations of large group meetings, etc. 

Now when the Government announced the tightened measures last week, the focus was on - because a lot of the local cases arose from social gatherings and eateries and all that - no dining-in in the evening and also the prohibition of activities in specified premises, etc. 

Since then we have been very closely monitoring the situation and also the implementation of all these social distancing measures and infection control measures in bureaus and departments. On Thursday and Friday, we have also issued specific reminders to bureaus and departments. 

Now as we observe the trend, we of course note that from the increasing number of cases that the situation is actually very severe, and that warrants further tightening up measures. That's why we announced this work-from-home arrangement for civil servants, meaning that the Government would not provide non-emergency and non-essential services with effect from tomorrow. 

Of course that will have an impact on people, on the provision of services, but I think that's the price that we have to pay at this juncture. And so you could see that we monitor the situation closely, we introduced targeted measures as when necessary. And if the situation warrants, we introduced the measures without any hesitation.

(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Government has been monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely and balanced various factors before deciding to adopt work-from-home arrangements for civil servants again.

Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip made the statement at a press conference this afternoon, during which Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced the latest round of measures to fight the disease, including special working arrangements for government employees starting July 20.

Explaining the rationale behind the arrangement, Mr Nip said: “I think the experience in the past six months tells us that it's always a balance among three things. First is the epidemic situation, second is the impact on the economic activities and people's livelihood and the third is the public's reaction.”

He said public service provision is the Government's priority. As such, the Civil Service Bureau has issued circulars to all bureaus and departments in the past week to remind them to adopt public hygiene and social distancing measures to maintain public services as far as possible.

“And also now we have sufficient supply of masks, protective equipment, and also measures in the offices as regards the partitions and all that. So that's why we continue with this provision of public services.

“At the same time, we have already introduced staggered working hours and lunch hours, cancellations of large group meetings, etc.”

He reiterated that the Government would not hesitate to introduce targeted measures if the situation warrants.

“Now as we observe the trend, we of course note that from the increasing number of cases that the situation is actually very severe, and that warrants further tightening up measures.

“That's why we announced this work-from-home arrangement for civil servants, meaning that the Government would not provide non-emergency and non-essential services with effect from tomorrow.

“Of course that will have an impact on people, on the provision of services, but I think that's the price that we have to pay at this juncture.

“And so you could see that we monitor the situation closely, we introduced targeted measures as when necessary. And if the situation warrants, we introduced the measures without any hesitation.”