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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
It is very easy to criticise such trips and to say 'Is your journey there really necessary?', as one newspaper did recently. The value of such trips only manifests itself over a considerable period of time in the context of Council's future programmes.
Cultural complexes
Our trip covered basically a number of facets. One of the main facets was to look at a couple of major cultural complexes housing major orchestras, as in the not too distant future our Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui will be completed and running in a similar manner. In fact, that building will be topped out tomorrow and I hope you will be there.
We visited the South Bank Centre and also the Barbican Centre which in some ways have similarities to the City Hall and the new Cultural Centre, one being to the south side of the river and the other to the north as are our complexes to the north and south of the harbour and are in some ways in competition with each other.
The management of the South Bank Centre was very keen to show us what they were doing, what their current plans were, how they financed their various activities and their long-term plans for very ambitious developments on the site. The main message that was stressed here was that to get good usage rate you must get people to use the complex for many activities, eating and drinking, as well as attending fringe activities, thus getting people to the complex who would not normally be concert-goers or theatre-goers and building up a potential new audience by merely getting people to the centre to see what is going on. Their vigorous pursuit of this ideal was gradually boosting their audiences. The additional revenue which came from such activities also was becoming very significant. However, a great deal of public money was still involved in running such a centre for the arts.
A similar situation pertained in the Barbican Centre although they were most insistent that we should place greater urgency on having an up-and-running management for our new Cultural Centre right now as, we were advised, it was essential for this to be in place if the Centre was to obtain the necessary worldwide contacts which would be required to provide programmes in this exciting new complex.
Competitive tendering
One of our other major concerns was to look into the competitive tendering which was currently being pursued by some local authorities in Britain and which would be required by all authorities when new legislation was enacted over the next year or so and to this end we visited:
(a) the Department of Environment where we were taken through the ideas behind the new legislation which, it was intended, would be enacted shortly.
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(b) The Wandsworth Borough Council who had put out many of their services to public tender some years ago; and
(c) The Westminster City Council who were currently engaged in an exercise to test their direct labour services against competitive tenders from outside.
It was stressed in all cases that the object of this exercise was not privatization for privatization's sake but to obtain value for money. It was possible and indeed in some cases probable that direct labour organizations could provide a service cheaper to the ratepayers than a similar service provided by a private contractor, and indeed the individual Council's own services were the yardstick against which tenders were to be judged. Where a private tender proved to be less competitive than the in-house costed service, the in-house service would be maintained.
It was also made clear to us that in a place like Hong Kong where there were few, if any, contractors involved in our work that we should be wary of creating possible monopoly situations with one or a very small number of contractors having virtually monopolistic control over such services. This could in the long run lead the Council into getting less value for money, or being left without a service at all, and thus a cautious approach was recommended to us.
Museums
We visited the Natural History Museum in London and a small Exploratory Science Museum in Bristol as well as the new and massive complex in La Villette in Paris.
Our visit to the Natural History Museum was basically to obtain advice and guidance from their Department of Public Services, and to be advised on the philosophy behind various museum services including the question of whether charging the public to enter the facility was desirable or not, and general matters on exhibits in museums versus their place in a building which itself was largely an exhibit due to its architectural merits. We were able to see their latest exhibits and on-going improvements.
The Exploratory in Bristol was a very small charitably funded science museum which had attracted a great deal of attention. It was housed in temporary accommodation with few permanent staff and no local Government support. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm and dedication of the people involved made it a very exciting and interesting place and was an example to everyone how lack of funds did not necessarily result in a poor facility.
La Villette, on the other hand, was a huge science facility where it appeared that money had been almost no obstacle. It was very exciting in many ways; however, it lacked in many areas any hands-on exhibits and whilst there was much to be admired there, it also proved that the spending of huge amounts of money did not necessarily produce something that needed to be emulated. It was interesting to know here that one of the main crowd pullers was the
Page 83 of 185
Page 83 of 185
156
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
It is very easy to criticise such trips and to say 'Is your journey there really necessary?, as one newspaper did recently. The value of such trips only manifests itself over a considerable period of time in the context of Councils future programmes.
Cultural complexes
Our trip covered basically a number of facets. One of the main facets was to look at a couple of major cultural complexes housing major orchestras, as in the not too distant future our Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui will be completed and running in a similar manner. In fact, that building will be topped out tomorrow and I hope you will be there.
We visited the South Bank Centre and also the Barbican Centre which in some ways have similarities to the City Hall and the new Cultural Centre, one being to the south side of the river and the other to the north as are our complexes to the north and south of the harbour and are in some ways in competition with each other.
The management of the South Bank Centre was very keen to show us what they were doing, what their current plans were, how they financed their various activities and their long-term plans for very ambituous developments on the site. The main message that was stressed here was that to get good usage rate you must get people to use the complex for many activities, eating and drinking, as well as attending fringe activities, thus getting people to the complex who would not normally be concert-goers or theatre-goers and building up a potential new audience by merely getting people to the centre to see what is going on. Their vigorous pursuit of this ideal was gradually boosting their audiences. The additional revenue which came from such activities also was becoming very significant. However, a great deal of public money was still involved in running such a centre for the arts.
A similar situation pertained in the Barbican Centre although they were most insistent that we should place greater urgency on having an up-and-running management for our new Cultural Centre right now as, we were advised, it was essential for this to be in place if the Centre was to obtain the necessary worldwide contacts which would be required to provide programmes in this exciting new complex.
Competitive tendering
One of our other major concerns was to look into the competitive tendering which was currently being pursued by some local authorities in Britain and which would be required by all authorities when new legislation was enacted over the next year or so and to this end we visited:
(a) the Department of Environment where we were taken through the ideas behind the new legislation which, it was intended, would be enacted shortly.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 83 of 185
157
(b) The Wandsworth Borough Council who had put out many of their
services to public tender some years ago; and
(c) The Westminster City Council who were currently engaged in an exercise to test their direct labour services against competitive tenders from outside.
It was stressed in all cases that the object of this exercise was not privatization for privatization's sake but to obtain value for money. It was possible and indeed in some cases probable that direct labour organizations could provide a service cheaper to the ratepayers than a similar service provided by a private contractor, and indeed the individual Council's own services were the yardstick against which tenders were to be judged. Where a private tender proved to be less competitive than the in-house costed service, the in-house service would be maintained.
It was also made clear to us that in a place like Hong Kong where there were few, if any, contractors involved in our work that we should be wary of creating possible monopoly situations with one or a very small number of contractors having virtually monopolistic control over such services. This could in the long run lead the Council into getting less value for money, or being left without a service at all, and thus a cautious approach was recommended to us.
Museums
We visited the Natural History Museum in London and a small Exploratory Science Museum in Bristol as well as the new and massive complex in La Villette in Paris.
Our visit to the Natural History Museum was basically to obtain advice and guidance from their Department of Public Services, and to be advised on the philosophy behind various museum services including the question of whether charging the public to enter the facility was desirable or not, and general matters on exhibits in museums versus their place in a building which itself was largely an exhibit due to its architectural merits. We were able to see their latest exhibits and on-going improvements.
The Exploratory in Bristol was a very small charitably funded science museum which had attracted a great deal of attention. It was housed in temporary accommodation with few permanent staff and no local Government support. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm and dedication of the people involved made it a very exciting and interesting place and was an example to everyone how lack of funds did not necessarily result in a poor facility.
La Villette, on the other hand, was a huge science facility where it appeared that money had been almost no obstacle. It was very exciting in many ways; however, it lacked in many areas any hands-on exhibits and whilst there was much to be admired there, it also proved that the spending of huge amounts of money did not necessarily produce something that needed to be emulated. It was interesting to know here that one of the main crowd pullers was the
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