To reap early benefits from enhanced productivity,
Government departments and subvented organisations take part in a 1999-2000
EPP exercise. They are tasked to provide new or improved services using
existing resources or to start reducing their baseline expenditure in 1999-2000.
Results -- $655 million new or improved services + $163 million reduction in expenditure In total, bureaux, departments and agencies have quoted
$818 million of productivity gains, three-quarters of which (i.e. $655
million) will be used to fund new or improved services and the remaining
one-quarter (i.e. $163 million) will be returned to centre as savings.
New/improved services include -
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Means -- How do they do it? | ||||||
Resources made available for funding new/improved
services or returning savings to the centre are achieved through a variety
of measures -- with the underlying principle that there should be no deterioration
to the quality of services provided to the public.
We wish to share with you measures adopted by various departments to achieve productivity gains. The followings are only a few examples. |
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Simplify Procedures | ||||||
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Flexible use of human resources | ||||||
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Rationalise services |
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Contract services |
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Use of IT and modern equipment |
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Support from Trading Funds, Housing Authority and two Municipal Councils |
The short-term achievement under EPP is not
confined to bureaux, departments and agencies using government expenditure.
Self-financing Trading Fund departments and public organisations like Housing
Authority, Provisional Urban Council and Provisional Regional Council,
together with their executive arms, are all very supportive of EPP. Trading
Fund departments have reflected their productivity gains in the pricing
of their services or introduced new services. Housing Authority and the
two Municipal Councils together with their executive arms have also identified
handsome amounts of productivity gains in 1999-2000.
Details of this exercise are set out in a booklet entitled "Enhanced Productivity Programme : 1999-2000" which is published as part of the 1999 Budget publications. The booklet can be viewed on the Internet at http://www.budget.gov.hk/1999/booklet/english/eepp.htm. Hard copies have also been distributed to the public. Please write to us if you would like to receive a copy of the EPP booklet. |