The chairmen of the four staff associations - Superintendents' Association, Hong Kong Police Inspectors' Association, Overseas Inspectors' Association and Junior Police Officers' Association - met the Chief Executive (CE), Mr Donald Tsang, and the Secretary for the Civil Service (SCS), Mr Joseph WP Wong, during a consultation session on the Policy Address and an informal meeting respectively on September 16.

Below is the gist of discussions at the two meetings:

Meeting with CE

* The purpose of the meeting was to listen to the concerns of civil service staff unions or associations and to reflect these concerns in the Policy Address if possible.

* CE's emphasis will be on strong governance, harmony and stronger economic performance.

* CE assured the Staff Side that the size of the civil service would remain unchanged within his tenure.

* CE noted the Staff Side's concerns regarding the impact of the CS Reforms and ESE, for instance, low morale, public criticism against civil servants, reduction of manpower and increase of workload, etc.

* CE promised that he would try to arrange more meetings with the Staff Side to listen to their views.

Representatives of the Police Force Council Staff Side emphasised the following points:

* Proper recognition of the unique status of the Police Force.

* There should be proper consultation between Government and Staff Associations.

Informal Meeting with SCS

* The purpose of the informal meeting was to provide an update on the progress of the Review on Civil Service Allowances.

* It is expected that a consultation paper will be issued by the end of September, this year. Proposals will be introduced in one-go in contrast to the previous two-phase approach. The consultation period will be around two months.

* Most probably, new proposals will be introduced in 2006. There will not be much change to the proposals in the previous consultation.