As an organisation, we believe in the values of being professional, proactive and we recognise that people are our greatest asset. To that effect, we devoted time and effort to define and communicate such values and to cultivate such a working environment. In so doing, we hope to attract, motivate, and retain our best talent.

The "Living our Values" culture campaign run last year involved every single member of the SFC workforce. During a series of workshops, we reiterated our core values and demonstrated how such values could be integrated into our daily work. Workshop attendees spoke up and exchanged ideas, thus demonstrating how each and every SFC person could play a part in the organisation.

Every quarter, we hosted "CEO Sharing Sessions" during which our CEO updated staff on the latest market developments, pressing regulatory issues and other organisational matters of immediate interest to employees. The CEO also answered staff questions submitted prior through the Intranet’s "Your Voice" mailbox which was made available to all employees since August 2009.

Last year, our recruitment efforts addressed our needs as follows:

• Meeting increased challenges to ensure compliance of licensed corporations;
• supporting our work with the International Organization of Securities Commissions; and
• handling increasingly complex issues arising from listed companies’ corporate governance.

Separately, in its second year running, our Graduate Trainee Programme recruited 19 graduates for the 2010 intake and achieved a retention rate of 88%. Our on–campus and overseas recruitment drive also paid off as we saw a 43% year–on–year increase in the number of applications for the 2011 intake.

The three–year graduate programme offers custom–designed classroom training, mentorship and rotational on–the–job experience in different areas of the organisation. By developing our graduate programme, we groom talent from within the organisation to lead and support the SFC’s development.

To help staff maintain a high level of technical proficiency and stay abreast of latest market events and trends, we offer practical training, e–learning modules, education sponsorship and a wide range of seminars conducted by local and overseas market experts.

Lectures, seminars, workshops conducted

Last year, we worked with a division to develop a function–specific competency framework and training curriculum. The objective of this project was to identify critical competencies for each job in a division and provide a comprehensive training roadmap to guide personal and professional development. We plan to extend the scope of this project to the rest of the operational divisions in the coming two years.

To further facilitate a self–driven learning culture, we developed our first in–house e–learning module–Applying the Securities and Futures Ordinance. The eSFO, as the tutorial is known, aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the ordinance that defines the SFC’s statutory objectives, functions and powers. This comprehensive e–learning module was completed by 21% of professional staff within the first two months of its launch in mid–February 2011.

Our remuneration strategy is reviewed each year to ensure that we can attract and retain the right talent to deliver our organizational priorities. We also recognise individuals and teams for their outstanding contribution to the organisation through the annual SFC Employee Awards. In 2010/11, four staff members received individual awards and team awards went to six teams for collaborating among different operating units to complete projects successfully.

Our information technology specialists have been managing projects to support process–efficiency, collaboration, and better communication. This year, major projects include:

• Setting up an electronic payment gateway in the Licensing Online Portal–since its launch in April 2010, the payment gateway has helped settle more than 1,000 payment transactions of over $14 million.
• Developing a successful approach to allow our enforcement personnel to cope with the ever–increasing demand on computer forensics.
• Launching the commission–wide Document Management System to improve overall document filing, sharing and storage capabilities.
• Revamping the Intranet to help further facilitate collaboration across divisions.
• Enhancing our corporate website infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted connectivity.

Income

Total revenue for the year was $1.7 billion, down 6.4% from $1.8 billion a year ago. Income from the securities transaction levy accounted for 81.6%, and fees and charges, 10.2% of our total revenue.

Expenses

We control expenses using the annual budget approved by the Financial Secretary for the operation of the SFC. Adopting stringent controls on spending, our total expenses were $780 million, about 12.8% below our approved budget. Staff is our most valuable class of assets and accounted for 72.4% of our total expenditures. Our workload increased with a rise in market activities and the number of licensed intermediaries. Over the past five years, our staff costs increased 36% whereas during the same period, the increase in the number of listed companies, listed securities and licensees was 21%, 118%, and 33% respectively.

The ratio of average expenses to income for the past five years was 36.8% and the average increase on expenses was 9.5% and on income was 22.9%.