TNAG-0364-FCO40-410-McKinsey-Report-on-strengthening-the-machinery-of-government-1973 — Page 38

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all part of one Government with the same objective of improving the quality of life for the community within the resources at our disposal. Some of us have a different slant on the way this should be achieved but the "check and balance" of different views helps to produce the right answers. The Consultants, before they go, will mount a training course, and with the assistance of Teddy Kidd, we are planning both to expand the Government Training Division in the Establishment Branch so that it can mount management training courses in Hong Kong and to send more officers to appropriate courses in Britain. All this will take time, but given the will to do it we think that most of the apparent difficulties can be overcome.

Chapter 3 deals with the improvement of personnel management. As the Establishment Branch is already hard pressed, having only barely recovered from the effects of the Salaries Commission (which although it cleared up a number of problems, certainly did not clear them all) we have not so far tackled much in this area apart from the personnel resource plan for the Police, re-designing confidential report forms and seeing what work might be done elsewhere. However, I have no doubt that many of the Consultants' recommendations (particularly means to speed up recruitment and other procedures) will be followed up in due course and will, I hope, form the subject of a separate newsletter later, as I know how interested you all are in establishment matters.

Now we come to Chapter 4, which is probably the most contentious area of the whole Report in that it deals mainly with the reorganisation of the Secretariat. At this point some of the more militant among you will say straightaway that the Consultants have gone wrong in not recommending its abolition, but there are those of us, including the Consultants, who believe this would be disastrous. The present position is that HE, who has taken a positive and dynamic interest in the whole exercise, has asked the Consultants to develop Chapter 4 in more detail and this they are doing. A number of meetings have been held, some at GH level, and their detailed recommendations are beginning to take shape. Of course, where any fundamental changes have to be made it is HE the Governor, advised as necessary by the CS but also by the FS, AG and SHA in their respective spheres of responsibility, who takes the ultimate decision. The advice of Unofficials on certain aspects is also important. I dare not say more at this stage, but hope later to be more informative.

/As some of you

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