CONFIDENTIAL
Options
3.
One consequence of this arrangement is that, while the
Governor himself does a lot of on the record media
interviews, information strategies co-ordinated from the
Chief Secretary's office. If the new Governor wanted his
own Press Adviser to ensure that the Government House view
was put to journalists both in Hong Kong and
internationally, the two main options would be:
To bring in a UK based official who would operate from
Government House and use the GIS as an executive arm in the
same way as the information co-ordinator currently does.
Careful arrangements would be needed to ensure consistency between the line being taken by the Governor's Press
Adviser, and the rest of the HKG information machine, particularly the Information Co-ordinator. There would be scope for friction here.
The Governor could bring a HKG official into
Government House. This could either be a member of GIS with
previous experience abroad, or the Information Co-ordinator himself. This would be less disruptive than bringing in an
outside official. But it would probably not be possible for
the Information Co-ordinator to combine an active role as
the Governor's personal press spokesman with the
co-ordination of overall government information policy.
would therefore probably need to be replaced in the
Chief Secretary's office.
He
PUGAEG/2
CONFIDENTIAL