Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam pledges to set up civil service training academy after visiting facility in Singapore
Chief executive also voices hope public servants back home can ‘think outside of the box’ and embrace new technology
Lam added that public servants in Hong Kong were unaccustomed to “thinking out of the box” and should embrace new technology as the city state did.
The chief executive was speaking on the second day of her maiden official trip in the Lion City, during which she visited the country’s Civil Service College.
“I really want us to explore in Hong Kong the setting up of a dedicated civil service academy... to provide more training for our civil servants, especially in areas such as leadership, public participation, and in terms of the application and use of technology,” she said on Thursday.
“The experience I have had with the Singapore Civil Service College is a very enlightening one. So, I hope that in this term of the government, we could make some real progress in creating a civil service college for Hong Kong.”
I really want us to explore in Hong Kong the setting up of a dedicated civil service academy
She said the civil service deserved a better-resourced training facility in the face of new challenges, noting that Secretary for Civil Service Joshua Law Chi-kong would visit the Singapore college soon to learn more from it.
Meanwhile, Lam on Thursday also visited Singapore’s Govtech Hive – the government’s innovation laboratory for digital services – before being received by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in Istana, the official residence and office of Singapore’s president, Tony Tan Keng Yam.
She told senior technology and communications officials that while Hong Kong had an Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, it was nothing like Govtech Hive, which had recruited a considerable number of top data scientists to help authorities embrace new technologies.
Lam said she had found it difficult to push Hong Kong officials to use new technologies and share data.
“I am not criticising my own civil service colleagues when I make that comment,” she said.
“But you will understand that in any institution which has been well established for many years and doing things in the same way for many years, especially when we are subject to resource constraints ... it is not easy to think outside of the box and to try new ways.
“We do need some sort of disruptions ... to stimulate my colleagues to really think in a more innovative way.”
Boosting the application of technology would help the city stay competitive and improve the delivery of public services, she added.
Li Kwai-yin, vice-president of the Chinese Civil Servants’ Association, supported Lam’s idea of building an academy.
“Lam said the government had a new role as a facilitator,” she said. “More training would be required for mid-ranking and high-level officials.”
Li suggested training that would broaden civil servants’ international horizons and enhance their knowledge of mainland China.
A long-awaited free-trade agreement between the Asean and Hong Kong is on track to be signed by the end of this year.
Additional reporting by Kimmy Chung
