About 1,300 non-civil service contract posts will be replaced by filling existing and anticipated vacant civil service posts and newly created civil service posts by the end of March, the Civil Service Bureau estimates.

In a Legislative Council paper presented today, the bureau said another 2,500 such positions will be replaced in the same way in 2008-09.

In view of the increasing demand on public services, the bureau considered it justified to increase the civil service establishment from about 162,830 at the end of March this year to about 164,500 at the end of March 2009.

The bureau said the general civil service open-recruitment freeze was lifted on April 1 last year, save for those grades included in the second Voluntary Retirement Scheme. As at the end of 2007, the government has conducted about 50 open-recruitment exercises and made about 1,260 offers of appointment to the civil service.

The five-year open-recruitment freeze on those grades included in the second Voluntary Retirement Scheme will end on March 21. Among them, 154 grades will be allowed to offer appointment to new recruits into the civil service from late March onwards.