Civil servant recruitment process could be fast-tracked

The government has proposed taking further steps to create a faster central recruitment procedure for hiring civil servants.

Earlier this week, a number of government representatives met with the Follow-up Committee of Public Administration Affairs of the Legislative Assembly (AL).

The Chairman of the AL committee, Si Ka Lon, reported that the government considered shortening the employment application period for civil servants from the current 20 working days down to 10 working days, and also considered reducing the days for submitting documents from 10 to five working days. In order to accomplish this, the government would amend the relevant laws.

Moreover, the government is planning to restrict quotas for interviews. However, restricting the number of interviewees requires legal grounds, therefore the government must amend laws first. At the current stage, a final decision has not been made regarding the interviewees’ quota restriction.

In addition, in order to speed up the recruitment procedure, it has been suggested that the marking and grading of examinations be conducted by computers or university professors.

Statistics show that the attendance rate for these exams has been considerably low for the past few years. In order to solve this problem, the government has considered eliminating unqualified applicants through a computer system which would conduct the process automatically.