Government revamp the 1823 hotline to boost efficiency

Following the latest Policy Address and the city's first Five-Year Plan,the government says it will revamp the 1823 hotline and expand

artificial intelligence in public services to boost efficiency.

Officials assure the tech push will not lead to a wave of civil servant job cuts.

Under the Chief Executive's Policy Address and the city's first Five-Year Plan,enhancing public governance is a major priority.

To achieve this, a new lead department system for 1823 hotline

will be set up to coordinate complex, cross-departmental complaints

and ensure issues are resolved.

It will also employ large language models to identify recurring problems,allowing government to fix issues proactively.

Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration,Warner Cheuk said "For individual complaints, our response target is to

issue the first reply within 10 calendar days,

and then issue the substantive reply within 30 calendar days.

That is from the date of receiving the reply."

Meanwhile, 30 AI public service projects will be launched to speed up tasks such as licensing and environmental monitoring.

The Civil Service chief stresses AI is meant to free up manpower and

allow civil servants to undertake more strategically important jobs,

rathan than replace them.

Secretary for the Civil Service,Ingrid Yeung said "We aim to release manpower to undertake new jobs.So I I do not think there will be a big wave of cutting of civil servant jobsThe important thing is that we use the hands that can be released by AI.Well, if they need training, we give them proper training and use them in strategically important areas."

The government aims to roll out the upgraded 1823 system

by the first quarter of next year. To improve the efficiency, Deputy Chief Secretary will regularly review the progress and report back to the district governance steering committee.