Finance Bureau have pledged to provide an enabling environment in order to facilitate bureaux and departments to deliver enhanced productivity. In response to the comments and concerns received during the EPP Ambassador's visits conducted last October to December, we have introduced a range of new measures to liberalise existing regulations, devolve more authorities to bureaux and departments, and streamline procedures, where appropriate. We are confident that with the new measures, bureaux and departments would have greater flexibility in discharging their various functions. | ||
Procurement of Stores and Services
In order to give bureaux and departments greater flexibility and authorities to conduct procurement, we have announced a wide range of revised financial limits and authorities for government procurement in Financial Circular No. 7/99. The main changes made include- * Thresholds for procurement without recourse to
tender
* Direct Purchase Authority (DPA)
* Contract variation
* Help desk
On accommodation matters, in order to provide better services to user departments, we have introduced the following changes in May - * Streamlined procedures for fitting- out works
* Flexibility for bureaux and departments to determine
internal partitioning
Details of the above new arrangements are set out in Architectural Services Department Accounting Circular No. 1/99 of 1 May 1999. PSB and GPA will jointly host a briefing session in June to explain the new procedures. We will issue invitation to bureaux and departments in due course. * On-site maintenance service
In the past, bureaux and departments had to place all kinds of printing orders with the Printing Department, and were required to seek Government Printer's prior approval before contracting out any printing jobs. This was time-consuming and inflexible to meet some urgent operational needs, such as the printing of posters, publicity pamphlets and booklets for promotional campaigns. To address this, bureaux and departments have been given Direct Printing Authority (DPA) since last July to procure from outside contractors non-classified printing items of up to $10,000. We are now reviewing the effectiveness and acceptability of this arrangement in order to decide whether the DPA limit should be further raised. Government Land Transport To further improve customer service, the Government Land Transport Agency (GLTA) provides a one-stop service in booking pool transport with effect from 1 June 1999. Instead of having to make separate enquiries for bookings in GLTA's two transport pools, bureaux and departments will only need to contact one single point for various kinds of transport services. Bookings can be made at telephone numbers 2802 0558 or 2582 4852 or facsimile number 2824 0955. Please refer to GLTA's memorandum to Bureaux Secretaries and Heads of Departments of 12 May 1999 on Pool Transport Centralised Booking System. We will continue to explore various means to improve our services to user departments, and to provide a more enabling environment for them to operate efficiently and effectively. We also need your support and feedback. Please write to us if you have any views and ideas, either through the EPP Newsletter Team or to the E Division of Finance Bureau direct. |