Date of next meeting and items for discussion
Management succession in the Independent Commission Against Corruption
Mr CHAN Chun-ying declared that he was a member of the Operations Review Committee of ICAC. He considered it inappropriate for the Panel to interfere into manpower deployment matters of ICAC.
Strengthening Hong Kong’s counter-terrorism preparedness and public education
Counter-terrorism drills and public education
Mr CHAN Chun-ying referred to a research publication of the LegCo Secretariat on public preparedness for terrorist attacks and asked whether consideration would be given to the participation of members of the public in CT drills, which was the practice in Singapore.
S for S responded that the Administration had been strengthening CT preparedness through providing frontline law enforcement officers with appropriate equipment and training as well as conducting drills. Over 100 members of the public had participated in a CT drill in 2017. The Police and the Fire Services Department (“FSD”) had also strengthened public education on what they should do in the event of a terrorist attack.
Referring to paragraph 8 of the Administration’s paper, Mr CHAN Chun-ying expressed concern about how Immediate Tactical Intervention was conducted. Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations) responded that having regard to the prevalence of “lone-wolf” terrorist attacks in other countries, training was focused on ensuring that officers arriving earliest at the scene were capable of making swift responses. The Police had also procured modular vehicle barriers, which had been deployed during large public events such as the fireworks displays at festivals, for preventing terrorist attacks using vehicles.