TNAG-0364-FCO40-410-McKinsey-Report-on-strengthening-the-machinery-of-government-1973 — Page 59

STRENGTHENING THE MACHINERY

OF GOVERNMENT

SUMMARY

Measured in terms either of its population or of its economy, Hong Kong has one of the highest growth rates in the world a situation that imposes heavy pressure on Government to expand the scale and scope of the services it provides. It must respond to the demand to increase the volume of existing services. It must satisfy the rising expectations of the population by improving the quality of these services and by introducing new ones. And because the services are becoming increasingly complex in themselves, Government may require increasingly sophisticated methods of providing them.

In addition to meeting the requirements of growth Government must continue to satisfy the normal criteria of public sector activities, both legis- lative and executive. In its legislative or policy-making role, for example, it must provide Hong Kong with a stable legal environment, it must ensure that all the implications of proposed Government action are considered and that all interests receive an equitable hearing, it must be seen to be fair and honest. In its executive role for example, in building roads, educating children or running hospitals - it must satisfy in addition criteria that are more akin to those of a commercial undertaking, namely to respond rapidly to changing needs, to provide goods and services to the required standard at minimum cost, and to achieve increasing standards of efficiency and effect- iveness.

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Whether or not the Government satisfies the legislative criteria to a sufficient degree involves a qualitative judgement that is beyond our competence to make. However, on the question of whether or not the Government meets the criteria for its executive role, we were able to apply more factual measures.

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We found a variety of problems, all of them symptoms of one under- lying problem the Hong Kong Government's fundamental difficulty of trying to expand services in the face of a continuing decline in numbers of skilled and experienced staff, and the resulting dilution of their efforts. Our task, there- fore, was to identify and recommend ways of improving the machinery of Government so as to increase its capacity to expand with the present limit- ations on the supply of skilled staff. We were asked to advise on how these improvements could be achieved without, in the first instance, significantly changing the system that is, without significantly changing organisational relationships, main areas of responsibility or constitutional requirements.

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McKinsey & Company, Inc.