Message from the Director
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The Department has been working hard to get additional manpower over the years. The Government’s 2017-18 Budget proposes the creation of 61 civil service posts for us. This is the sixth year in a row in which the Budget proposes to increase our civil service establishment, and shows that the Government recognises our genuine need for additional staff to undertake work in relation to housing on various fronts. Aside from the civil service establishment, we ourselves continue to boost the strength of our support staff by means of outsourcing, engaging professional service providers and hiring body-shopped personnel and Housing Authority term staff. |
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 A while back I mentioned here our own “housing problem”. To accommodate our expanding workforce, we are doing everything possible to increase office space, including renting private office premises. For instance, Quantity Surveying Section 1 has moved in stages to the newly rented office in Mong Kok since January this year. Mr Ivan Lee Kwok Bun, Deputy Director, and I paid them a visit in mid-February to see how colleagues had settled in. We had a chat with Ms Lau Tsz Mei, Chief Quantity Surveyor, Mr Tai Siu Tung, Senior Quantity Surveyor, and other colleagues. I am grateful for their effort to fit in with the refurbishment and relocation work amid their hectic schedule. Of course, Administration Sub-division and Estate Management Division are much appreciated for their work in this endeavour. |
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While striving to increase staff resources, in parallel we need to review our existing work to see if some can be trimmed down if not done away with, and if the rest can be handled in better ways and with better tools. To take one recent example, thanks to the use of information technology, our management of construction works and estates has been streamlined. Since its introduction last year, the Development and Construction Site Mobile System has enabled colleagues to obtain site information through a Radio Frequency Identification tag pre-installed on their mobile devices. Daily inspection and reporting are made easier by the use of mobile phones to collect and record data. The second phase development of the application scheduled for this year will give the system better functions and simplified procedures. On the estate management front, to facilitate home visits by housing management staff, their new mobile devices will come in phases with a touch-screen function from March onwards. If the new device proves useful to colleagues, I hope to see more work processes added to the device as Apps. I would like to thank colleagues for their openness to new initiatives, and our information technology and procurement staff for their effort. |
