More than half of fire officers support the Fire Services Department's proposal to reduce their working hours from 54 to 51 hours per week.
Briefing the media on the results of a staff opinion survey today, Assistant Director of Fire Services James Ng said the department is encouraged by the majority support. He hopes a detailed proposal can be tabled to policy bureaus soon, so a trial scheme can be implemented by year's end.
The department has discussed the proposal with staff associations and all units since mid-June, and has amended it after considering members’ concerns.
It briefed the Fire Services Departmental Consultative Committee about the new proposal earlier this month, and a related consultative document was published.
Questionnaires were sent to all 6,335 Fire Stream members to solicit their views on the new proposal between August 20 and 25. The response rate was 91.4%.
Of the 5,792 questionnaires returned, 55.9% supported the suggested 51-hour proposal, while 29.6% did not support it, and 12.9% had no opinion. The remaining 1.6% of responses were deemed invalid.
The department has sent the results to the Fire Services Departmental Consultative Committee.
A trial scheme will be implemented for the new proposal. The department will afterwards form a working group to look into the feasibility of further reducing working hours to 48.
The department has taken into account the efficiency of emergency services and daily operations in formulating the new proposal, which is cost-neutral, needs no additional manpower, and maintains the same level of service.