It is sink or swim time for the civil service. The retirements of a number of senior locals together with the enforced departures of many senior expatriates have led to the rapid promotions of scores of young, aspiring administrative officers. While most are ready for the top jobs or will shortly grow into them, the exercise has left a major void in the ranks immediately below. How is that gap going to be filled? This must be the question troubling Civil Service Branch officials in the months building up to the sovereignty change next summer. Apparently, an obvious solution is to promote those locals even further down the ladder more rapidly. But this raises the question of how many more second-tier or third-tier officials are ready to take up the heavier responsibility. Many of them are not sufficiently capable or competent to assume a more senior role. Before Secretary for the Civil Service Lam Woon-kwong and his colleagues in the branch can even address the dilemma, they must resolve other problems brought by the succession gap. There are problems which will have more serious implications on the culture and future of the civil service because they touch on staff loyalty. Traditionally, the Hong Kong civil service counted on seniority for promotions. Some who were not really up to the jobs of department head or policy secretary were nevertheless promoted to those senior positions. The accelerated promotions of some young local officers in recent years do reflect that the Government has, however, shifted away from this old practice and many more officers have been promoted out of turn to take up top positions. This has been the right way to go in the run-up to 1997. The hierarchy should not be filled with old hands who have long service but proved not to be sharp and flexible enough to promptly respond to the rapidly-changing political and social scene in Hong Kong. But those old hands who have been hoping for a promotion for ages will surely ask whether they are so useless that they cannot even measure up to the performance of their youngest colleagues. It is only understandable that some senior officials may feel let down by the administration. In the past when 10 people would compete for one or two senior posts, failing was not such a blow. Now, with the exodus of both local and expatriate officers in both the administrative and professional grades, it is usually the case that the same number of officers vie for six or seven senior positions. If, even then, they cannot win a promotion, it will obviously be seen to be reflecting badly on the officers' ability and competence. The inevitable outcome will be that these officers will lose faith in the administration. And this sentiment is said to be already apparent. Compounding the situation are the sometimes-unrealistic expectations of younger officers, who believe that they should be promoted whenever a vacancy arises. So instead of concentrating their energy on learning the job, some opt to take a short-cut by packaging their performance in a way that is easily visible to their seniors to enhance their chances of being recognised. This is a very dangerous trend for the civil service. When officers govern on the basis of public perception, standards are bound to fall. The problems detected among some senior and young officers present a dilemma for the central administration. Hong Kong has to hope that more officers will be capable of putting things in perspective and acting collectively to strive for a better future for the territory.