the 190,000 strong bureaucracy struggles to lift productivity in order to meet expanding demands for public service under staff growth constraints. The administration will no doubt be less ready to create new positions which it may not be able to fill anyway because of the manpower shortages gripping the territory. Nor will it be possible, especially given the need to restrain wage rises. to expect the government to throw money where it is
15 demanded."
And it added:
"There are people who prefer to read the situation in the context
of the general public's heightened consciousness these days about their own rights.
JT
The question is how, at a time of economic problems, pressure, general difficulty and change in general, a process of institutional reform can have the full chance of mobilising the support of the community. Presumably, the only way is by making improvements in administration noticeable and useful to the public at large. Indeed, if that is possible, it would be an important way of bringing to Hong Kong people a greater awareness of governmental actions. If so, improvements should: -
* make the process of government decision-taking noticeably more
rational
and thereby
* bring tangible benefit to the public.
In
This area of "good government" is connected too with "rights". its Manual on Human Rights Training for Public Officials, the Human Rights Unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat has identified five issues relating to "good administration". I imagine that if their level of use in Hong Kong and the U.K. is high, the Working Group could profitably approach the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Hong Kong and British experience could be offered as a model for others. This would fit in with "lifestyle" diplomacy. But if their level of implementation is not high, part of the substance of the Working Group's work could be to examine how some of the principles might be incorporated into domestic practice. This will be no easy task, but an important one perhaps, given the facts of Hong Kong's life. Some basic ideas underlie the principles themselves: -
(1) How the absence of effective control over administration can
result in its increased and unaccountable discretionary power;