The head of a civil service union federation in Hong Kong has warned that tighter disciplinary action risks becoming excessive as the government seeks to revise the penalty system to handle underperforming workers this year.

Leung Chau-ting, chairman of the Federation of Civil Service Unions, was responding to the Civil Service Bureau’s reply to a lawmaker’s inquiry this week about revising the regulations to further optimise the disciplinary mechanism, including tightening rules on withholding salaries during suspension and confiscating withheld pay.

The bureau said it aimed to implement the revised Public Service (Administration) Order and the Public Service (Disciplinary) Regulation this year.

It also revealed that 151 civil servants had been dismissed for serious misconduct or criminal offences between 2022 and 2025, with the number of dismissals dropping steadily from 60 in 2022-23 to 51 in 2023-24 and 40 in 2024-25.

Of the total, 73 were dismissed for criminal offences and 78 for misconduct. Dismissals among police officers were the highest at 44.

Leung told the South China Morning Post that tighter disciplinary action risked becoming excessive, with some supervisors acting aggressively under pressure to meet headcount reduction targets.

He said minor or non-core performance issues could increasingly be escalated into disciplinary cases, creating a perception that authorities were “tightening the net”.