Hong Kong government’s proposals to downsize the civil service and revamp the HK$2 elderly transport fare scheme are likely to result in “insignificant” cost savings, the research office of the city’s legislature has said.Civil servants outside the Central Government Offices in Admiralty, Hong Kong. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
The two proposals were among a raft of measures unveiled last month during Financial Secretary Paul Chan’s annual budget speech in a bid to cut government spending. Hong Kong has logged a fiscal deficit for three years in a row. Chan said the government is aiming to reduce recurrent expenditure by seven per cent through 2027-28.
He announced that 10,000 posts would be cut across the civil service by 2027 and said that the HK$2 transport subsidy scheme for residents aged above 60 would be capped. In a note published on Thursday, the Legislative Council (LegCo)’s research office said that the two measures would appear to have limited effect on cost savings.“The budget initiative to cut the civil service posts by 10,000 in two years seems to have [an] insignificant effect on manpower savings, given the large gap of 18,900 between establishment and actual workforce,” the office said, adding that vacancy rate in the civil service had reached 10 per cent.
As of the end of 2024, Hong Kong’s civil service was about 174,000-strong, falling short of the 193,000-odd posts across the entire civil service establishment, according to official figures.T.
