TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 284

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4.25

In 1979 the Education Department examined the planning machinery

within the Department of Education and Science (England and Wales) in the

light of the overseas consultant's advice on educational planning at

national level, with a view to strengthening its own planning mechanism.

As a result adjustments were made to reflect more strongly the three basic

criteria (i) that planning must directly involve those administering the

policies that have to be planned; (ii) that specialist skills must be

built into the machinery in such a way as to ensure that they can make

a creative contribution to policy formation without being able to determine

it single-handed; and (iii) that the planning machinery must keep close

to those most directly concerned with policy, exploring amongst other

things options that reflect their known views, and seeking their guidance

and endorsement from time to time. Below the Director and Deputy Director

of Education the officer directly responsible for overall planning in the

department is the Senior Assistant Director of Education (Planning and

Development), whose branch includes the Planning and Building Division,

headed by an Assistant Director. SAD(P & D) is chairman of the

Directorate Planning Committee (DPC) membership of which consists of all

Assistant Directors, the Chief Treasury Accountant and the Secretary of

the Education Department, and senior staff of the Planning and Building

Division. A senior representative of the Social Services Branch also

serves on the DPC, and Finance Branch officers and other specialist officers

may be co-opted from time to time as occasion demands. Once the need for

a planning task has become clear, usually as the result of a request from

a user division or public pressure or suggestions from within the

Directorate, specialist officers of the division most closely concerned

with the subject-matter will initiate the work of identification and

analysis, eventually tabling an information and discussion paper in the

The conclusions reached in the DPC after due deliberation are

conveyed by the chairman to the Senior Directorate Meeting (SDM)

consisting of the Director, Deputy Director and two Senior Assistant

DPC.