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(3) Organisation of Government's Internal Administration:
(a) Adaptability to changing needs and circumstances
3.
The odd thing about many commentators of the Hong Kong scene is their ambivalence: on the one hand, they deplore our self-imposed restraint involving decisions, positively taken, not to intervene as well as to intervene; on the other hand,
when we do intervene their comments often seem to reflect the
view of a cynical English political philosopher of the 1920s, G.W. Howe (no relation, so far as I know, of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer) who declared that "government is mainly an expensive organisation to regulate evil-doers and tax those who behave: government does little for fairly respectable people except annoy them".
4.
More seriously, it is a strange paradox that, whereas in business, organisational changes are regarded as a virtue, reflecting a dynamic approach, in government, organisational changes tend to be regarded as being cosmetic or as a device to obscure indecisiveness. But this is unfair for civil servants are quite capable of realising that the organisation of Government's internal administration must be adapted to
changing needs and circumstances both quantitative and qualitative to avoid becoming arthritic, unresponsive and incompetent.
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Too frequent changes, of course, can lead
to administrative indigestion and the loss of a sense of continuity in policy and, anyway, geopolitical and constitutional constraints cannot be easily ignored.
5.
(b) Superstructure
Now, the Governor, in his role as chief executive, as opposed to his position as the Queen's Representative, has three principal advisers within the civil service: the Chief Secretary who, inter alia, is head of the civil service and the Governor's
deputy; the Financial Secretary, who is the Governor's adviser on budgetary and fiscal policy and economic and monetary affairs; and the Attorney General, who is the Governor's legal adviser
and the Crown Law Officer. These three officials are members ex-officio of both the Executive and Legislative Councils and, as of right, each has direct access to the Governor. The Chief
/Secretary....