Anti-graft chief Alan Lai Nin said a proposal to make misconduct by civil servants a statutory offence would be ready in one year.
Currently, the Independent Commission Against Corruption can only prosecute civil servants for 'misconduct in public office' under common law. Mr Lai, the ICAC commissioner, said this was based largely on precedent and made prosecutions difficult.
'It is also not clear enough for civil servants to be aware under what circumstances they are committing a crime,' he said at a Legco security panel meeting.
He said a study was under way to define offences and which part of the ICAC would handle the matters, adding the commission was open-minded on whether the new law would be extended from public servants to others such as councillors.
Public outcry for such measures rose after Gary Cheng Kai-nam, former vice-chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, failed to declare a public relations firm to Legco and admitted leaking a confidential document to a client.
But Mr Lai denied there was syndicated corruption in the public sector and he did not believe graft had eroded the administration. He said 3,101 corruption reports had been received in the first nine months of the year, a 21 per cent increase on the same period last year. The number of pursuable reports grew by 22 per cent to 2,237, he said.