The Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme launched by the Civil Service Bureau in 1999 aims to encourage civil servants to strive for continuous improvement in the provision of quality service to the public. The Award Scheme not only allows us to commend individual departments and teams with excellent performance in the delivery of service, but also offers an opportunity for our fellow colleagues to learn from the award-winning quality service schemes, consolidate experiences and broaden perspectives, so as to further enhance the quality of service delivered to the public.
This year, the Award Scheme attracted 141 entries from 51 departments. After a rigorous adjudication process, the winners were announced in yesterday's award presentation ceremony. A total of 50 nominations from 25 participating departments were given awards. The people-based spirit of our hardworking and dedicated civil service has been fully reflected in many of the winning service schemes.
Officiating at the award presentation ceremony yesterday, the Acting Chief Executive, Mr Henry TANG, in his congratulatory message, commended the winning units and civil service colleagues for their remarkable performance, and spoke highly of their perseverance and commitment in the provision of quality service. Another officiating guest, the Hon LEE Cheuk-yan, who was also one of the chairpersons of the adjudicating panels of this year's Award Scheme, complimented the civil service on its dedication to the delivery of effective quality service. Another adjudicator, Mr Buston CHU, Vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Customer Service Excellence, praised the civil service for its devotion, as well as its commitment to listening to public views and launching new services for the benefit of the public.
To promote the commendable efforts of the civil service, we have arranged to present the success stories in a number of TV programmes. A one-hour episode featuring the outstanding performance of winning departments and teams, as well as highlights of the award presentation ceremony, will be broadcast on TVB Jade at 7:30 pm and i-Cable News Channel at 11:30 pm on Saturday, 3 October 2009 (Mid-Autumn Festival). This will be followed by a number of short winning stories, which will be broadcast on ATV Home at 11:00 am and TVB Jade at 3:20 pm every Sunday for 13 weeks starting from 4 October 2009.
Once again, my warmest congratulations to all the winning departments and awardees. I would also like to express my gratitude to our fellow RTHK colleagues for producing the TV programmes. Let's watch the programmes with our families to share the joy of the awardees and support the civil service.