(b)
The former Prime Minister's response to this report was entitled 'Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps'. It identified 3 main priorities:
First: The work of each department must be organised in a way which focuses on the job to be done; the systems and structures must enhance the effective delivery of policies and services.
Secondly: The management of each department must ensure that their staff have the relevant experience and skills needed to do the tasks that are essential to effective government.
Thirdly: There must be a real and sustained pressure on and within each department for continuous improvement in the yalue for money obtained in the delivery of policies and services.
(c) The central recommendation of the report was for the establishment
of agencies to carry out the executive functions of government within a policy and resources framework set by a department. No detailed prescriptions or centralised solutions are provided - the test must be always adopting the structure which best fits the job to be done.
The leadership and support of Ministers was seen as crucial.
ر
Mrs. Thatcher stated in Parliament in 1988 that:-
"Each agency will be accountable to a Minister, who will in
turn be accountable to Parliament for the agency's performance. These agencies will generally be within the Civil Service, and their staff will continue to be civil servants. The Government
will develop a continuing programme for establishing agencies. 34 applying progressively the lessons of the experience gained.'
X
11
This, too, strikes me as a useful parallel for Hong Kong; both in terms of organising change to get particular jobs better done, and in terms of public accountability.
Central Government Audit
The Changing Face of Whitehall says this:-
-
"The annual audit of government accounts is a vital element in
Parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, and increasingly important in the evaluation of the efficiency of government programmes. Reforms in 1983 reinforced the independence of the auditing body
which the 900-strong National Audit Office (NAO) now forms part of the staff of Parliament. The NAO reports to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Commons and provides information of value to a much wider audience, including other select committees and the media. It has an explicit remit to