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I might add that a further area for delegations is being explored (without the assistance of the Consultants) as it is in the somewhat delicate political field of the Executive Council. However, we think we are on fairly safe ground as Sir Yuet-keung Kan has himself suggested that this is an obvious target. Papers dealing with land matters constitute some 23% of the whole, and at a meeting recently chaired by Denys Roberts we have isolated the non-policy matters, mainly involving land, which might not have to go to the Council. Legislative sanction will be necessary for many of the changes, so we don't expect anything to happen overnight.
This leads me on to exhort all of you, if you need any exhortation, to look carefully at procedures in your own department to see whether they are dealt with at the lowest possible reasonable level. There is a well-recognised psychological characteristic in delegating, that most people think that if they delegate a function, it will not be dealt with as well as they deal with it themselves. This may well be true in some instances, but it is not a good reason for withholding delegation; and if senior officers are to have the time to think, plan, innovate and give the proper proportion of their time to matters which are really important, it is absolutely necessary that they ruthlessly push downwards stuff which really can be dealt with surprisingly competently by staff junior to themselves.
This has
an additional advantage in that it helps, in the words of the Consultants, to create job satisfaction, and to
I realise develop skills and experience of junior staff.
I am preaching, perhaps pompously, but I fear this is
necessary.
Chapter 2 which deals with the introduction of new machinery into Government is by far the most profound part of the exercise. It is not really tricky but it needs a great deal of concentrated thought and discipline to apply it. Since December we have been trying it out in a number of test areas as follows :-
(a) Long-term programme plans.
Two such plans
are being produced, one involving medical and health activities and the other, secondary education. There is nothing very revolutionary about long-term plans, except that such planning as exists at present is not across the board, being limited to medical, fire services, colony outline plan, 20year road plan, water resources, and a few others. What is different is the manner in which these plans are tackled by the Consultants
/in systematic
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