With its core activities centred on helping low-income families with their housing needs, the Housing Department (HD) and Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) are responsible for providing accommodation for about a third of the city's population.
While the HA oversees the development and implementation of public housing programmes, the HD acts as the executive arm, implementing the HA's policies, as well as those set by its standing committees.
Aside from maintaining its existing stock of 720,000 public rental flats, through a five-year rolling programme, the HA produces an average of 15,000 public rental flats per year.
To achieve this, the HA and HD employ staff in 10 professional grades. These include architect, landscape architect, geotechnical engineer, civil engineer, structural engineer, building services engineer, maintenance surveyor, quantity surveyors, estate surveyor and planning officer.
'As a public sector developer, the HA [and HD's] mainstream functions offer multi-disciplinary 'through-train' services that cover all aspects of public housing development from planning, design, tender, construction, property management, maintenance to redevelopment,' says HD deputy director Ada Fung. 'We are a unique organisation in Hong Kong, employing all these professional services under one roof.'
Tasked by the government to expand the scope of the Home Ownership Scheme, the two bodies have had to extend the retirement age for serving officers and, at the same time, mount an aggressive hiring drive through which they hope to fill vacancies across several disciplines. The HD is currently in the market for planning officers and quantity surveyors.
'Generally speaking, we are looking for people who can apply the latest professional knowledge to undertake planning work, produce designs, manage and effectively co-ordinate tasks. They must be willing to learn, grow and accept new challenges,' says Fung.