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3.33 Monitoring of Policy Implementation
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H.E. the Governor receives advice from the Executive Council on policy matters but it is relevant at this point to observe that in many Corruption Prevention Department assignments it has been found necessary to examine the policy from which certain Government practices and procedures have developed. On occasions, this examination has revealed that in detailed implementation there has been a divergence from the original policy advised by the Executive Council. It is thought that this divergence occurs in situations where Heads of Departments, in grappling with the day to day problems of operational implementation, do not always perceive that a deviation from the spirit behind the policy is happening. It is not suggested that Heads of Departments do not review implementation in relation to the original policy intention but rather that the tendency is only to reveiw when they are faced with serious problems of operational implementation.
3.34 The broad question raised, therefore, is whether Government is satisfied
that mechanisms exist for establishing the extent to which operational implementation might lead, perhaps slowly and subconsciously, to divergence from the original policy intention. The paper on the concept of Management Review has been studied with this point in mind, but it seems that the major limitations within the concept are, firstly, that a Management Review will only be triggered off by the identification within a department of a significant organisational or other management problem, thus leading to a request from the Head of Department for a Management Review. If a Head of Department does not identify any significant problem there would normally be no Management Review. Secondly, although a Management Review will review and report on how policy objectives are being implemented, as reflected by the operational arrangements made by the department for carrying out the necessary work, this review will be confined to the systems and will not monitor the effectiveness of the policy.
3.35 In Chapter 2 (Paras. 2.2 to 2.10) the relationships between policy
Secretaries and Heads of Departments in terms of accountability for effective and efficient implementation of policy are examined. It is suggested that some confusion exists between policy Secretaries and Heads of Departments in this matter and the broad question raised in Para. 3.34 above can only be answered when the respective roles have been clarified.
3.36 Discipline in Government
If a Head of Department decides, having considered all factors, especially those in mitigation, that an officer has failed to meet his responsibilities as a supervisor and that he should be called to account for this failure, it is essential that disciplinary processes should be invoked with speed and determination. In this study, an attempt was made to ascertain the views and attitudes of officers at various levels concerning the application of discipline. No attempt was made to examine the mechanisms by which discipline is invoked.
3.37 It is only possible to give broad generalisations of the views given, which
were wide-ranging and included comment not only on discipline in terms of conduct relative to rules, regulations, etc. but also discipline in relation to incompetence. It was apparent from the discussions that officers did not always recognise a clear distinction between discipline as applied to
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/misconduct...
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