Opinion | How Hong Kong’s next chief executive can show he means business with ‘result-oriented’ reform
- The annual policy address should include concrete targets instead of pledges to review systems and formulate proposals, while senior civil service officers’ pay could be linked to performance
- Key performance indicators for the civil service must convey an immediate sense of gain to the people to be meaningful and spur substantive action
Since Hong Kong’s first chief executive Tung Chee-hwa introduced the Principal Officials Accountability System in 2002, successive chief executives have tried their hand at enacting new measures to enhance public governance.
It is perhaps not fair to say that the terms of previous chief executives were not “result-oriented” as policy addresses have been awash with pledges and targets in various policy areas. By the end of the period covered in the policy address, the chief executive takes stock of these targets and, lo and behold, few of them are unmet.
In theory, the people of Hong Kong should have cause to rejoice, but we know this is rarely the case. The policy address is a product of collective work within the government through a largely bottom-up process. Very few officials would propose to their political masters targets that they are reluctant to or cannot achieve.
