SPARE a thought for the Regional Services Department which has been without a boss for nearly six months. Its former director, Adolf Hsu Hsung, stepped down at the end of March, to become managing director of First Bus, and his replacement has still not been announced.
Then there is the Customs and Excise Department, where staff have known for more than two months that Commissioner Lawrence Li Shu-fai is leaving but have still not been told officially who his replacement will be.
Other vacancies are also cropping up throughout the civil service. It was revealed back in July that Director of Information Services Thomas Chan Chun-yuen is to leave his post. But again there is no sign of a successor in sight.
Nor is there any official word on the most widely watched appointment of all: the choice of who will head Hong Kong's new office in Beijing, which the Government has promised to have up and running by the end of the year.
It is not that the Government has failed to address the issue of who should be given these posts. Far from it. At least three months ago, Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan Fang On-sang chaired a postings board to decide on these and a number of other appointments, including who should head Hong Kong's economic and trade offices in Singapore, Sydney and New York.
Also in attendance were Financial Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and Secretary for the Civil Service Lam Woon-kwong.
In the past, that would have been the end of the matter. Once a postings board had approved Mrs Chan's choices, they would have been rubber-stamped by former Governor Chris Patten and then announced. But under Tung Chee-hwa it has become a very different game.