TNAG-2004-FCO40-2852-Hong-Kong-political-parties-1990 — Page 176

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28.

Although attention tends to focus on the

Legislative and Executive Councils, there is a need too

for local leadership elsewhere.

29. Within the civil service we have for some years

followed a policy of giving properly qualified local

applicants priority for appointment. As a result, many

hundreds of talented local people have been recruited and advanced through the system. Half of our policy

Secretaries are local officers. So are most of the heads

of our government departments.

30. The Provisions of the Joint Declaration and Basic

Law are quite clear. In 1997 the Chief Executive and

his principal officials must be Hong Kong Chinese. We

are already well on the way to achieving that position.

We may lose some local officers either to the private

sector or to emigration. But I do not see real

difficulty in meeting the requirements of 1997. The

public service has both the depth and the strength of potential leadership that it needs. This is vitally

important. The civil service has a dual role to play,

not only as an effective and efficient provider of

services to the community, but also as a source of

stability within the community. People have a right to expect the civil service to continue to perform both

roles in the years ahead.

31.

In the Judiciary too we must encourage more local

talent. Here, as in the civil service, expatriates have

their role to play. I hope there will for many years be

those who are prepared to play it: they have served Hong

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