Civil service chief Ingrid Yeung has dismissed suggestions that government workers be allowed to take their childcare leave by the hour, citing administrative difficulties.

Since April, civil servants can take three days of leave annually for each child aged under three they have. The 12,000 eligible employees can choose to take the leave all at once, or in full or half-day blocks.

On Monday, unionist lawmaker Chau Siu-chung told a Legislative Council panel meeting that there should be more flexibility.

"Some [civil servants] told me that they would like to start work two hours late, so that they could take care of their children. They also would like to leave work early by a few hours. I hope [the government] could relax the relevant arrangements," Chau said.

But in response, Yeung said it might be difficult to arrange on an hourly basis, suggesting employees use other leave instead if they only need to be absent for a while.

She also responded to Chau's suggestion of increasing paternity leave from five days to seven due to a low number of government employees taking time off.

"We have to strike a balance between welfare provided to civil servants and saving public money. We do not have any plans at the moment to increase paternity leave," Yeung said.

On arranging civil servants to work from home, the minister said this might be an "obstacle" for a number of government departments and units.

"We have to ensure that the civil servants do not have direct contact with members of the public in their day-to-day work, and that they do not have to handle any confidential information, then we can allow those civil servants to work from home," she said.

"However, with the more frequent use of technology, we may be able to implement work-from-home arrangements and we will encourage government departments to explore this."