Policy Statement & Submission

Introduction

1. The broad issues identified in the government's paper have been addressed by the Chamber submission entitled “Advisory Committees and Civil Society Participation – the Case of HKGCC”. There are, however, a number of issues raised in the government paper which can be further examined.

2. The main question posed by the Chamber's earlier submission is that of civil society participation in government administration (akin to involving members in the Chamber's operation in our own case). In other words, the advisory committee system provides the medium for government and society to interact, and through this process, for citizens to be involved in public administration.

3. The government paper has outlined additional points of detail. The issues involved can be broadly split into two levels:
- at the conceptual level, there are the question relating to the principle of accountability and encouraging civil society participation;
- at the operational level, the questions relate to the effectiveness of the committees, such as appointment and transparency.

Accountability

4. The issue of accountability was highlighted both in the Chamber submission and the government paper. In the latter case, the concern was mainly with the extent to which the government ministers, or Principal Officials (PO), should be held accountable for the committees, whereas the Chamber's emphasis is more on accountability of the appointees of the advisory committees.

Accountability of the PO

5. As a general rule, the PO is expected to be responsible for the committees which operate under his policy bureau. But the matter becomes more complicated when one considers the nature of the committees, as well as the specific role of the appointees within these committees.

6. The most straightforward case would be a committee acting as the PO's own policy think-tank, where members answer only to the PO. In this case, the members are accountable to the PO, while the PO is accountable for the committee as a whole. They would share the glory or take the blame together for policies which they propose.

7. But not all committees are the PO's private think-tanks. Some are statutory bodies with a legal duty to perform, and the PO should not be responsible for the decisions of these committees. Although members may have been appointed by the PO, their statutory duty is a “higher call” which they should fulfil with independence and professionalism, free from intervention by the PO. In this case, the PO's accountability is limited only to making the right appointments. Likewise, the prime responsibility of the members is to discharge their statutory duties, and they are accountable to the PO only insofar as the PO is a representative of the government which appoints them, but not to the PO individually.

8. Besides statutory bodies, there are many other advisory committees whose members do not simply answer to the PO, because they may represent some other organisations. In our earlier paper we developed the concept of “representation” to reflect the extent to which civil society participates in public administration through individuals appointed to government advisory committees. While very few appointees are de jure representatives of a constituency, advisory committee members should be able to represent some sectors of society to some degree, if there were to be genuine civil society participation. For these cases, the appointees will have a “double accountability”, being at the same time accountable to the PO who appoints them, and to the constituency which they represent. The issue becomes one of “balance of accountabilities”.

Balance of accountabilities

9. While personal quality must be the prime criteria in appointment to advisory committees, often people are sought for their ability to represent a body of opinion, not just their own. For the PO, the advice provided by the appointees would be more useful if they are more representative of – and hence more accountable to – their constituents. At the same time, there is also a risk of the advisory committee offering advice which is contrary to government policy, e.g. a committee advocating SME interests may decide to recommend government subsidies which is against the government policy of non-intervention.

10. From the point of view of civil society participation, a conflicting view between the government and an advisory committee is not necessarily bad; it is part of the interaction between government and society. The value of an advisory committee would be much less if it could only agree with government, or it if becomes merely an opinion gathering ground with no real influence or involvement in public policy.

11. Differing views from a government advisory committee only becomes a problem if the committee's advice is “elevated” to the political agenda and becomes an alternative to an established government policy, in which case the PO would have no choice but to defend government policy. The challenge for the PO is, therefore, to engineer the “balance of accountabilities”, to ensure that committee members can truly reflect public opinion constructively. From this point of view, the PO is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the committees within his bureau operate effectively. One important consideration is to make the right appointments and ensure that the committees operate effectively.

Operation of the advisory committees

Appointment

12. As the government paper states, the overriding principle must be to make appointments on the basis of merit. Normally, it is the PO's responsibility to make the appointments (or to make recommendations to the Chief Executive for making the appointments), hence the PO should have the discretion over whom to appoint, as long as the merit principle is observed. In doing so, the issues of accountability and civil society participation described above should be material considerations for the PO.

13. To engender good policy making and public participation in government administration, we recommend that more use should be made of the representational system, similar to the “functional constituency” concept, to help the PO achieve the balance of accountabilities described above. In this regard, the Chamber would offer itself to be such a functional constituency for appointment of representatives to a wider range of government bodies.

Performance appraisal and representation

14. The performance of advisory committee members is an important factor to consider in making re-appointments. This issue has been addressed in the Chamber's earlier paper. Considering that some appointments may be based on one's representation in certain constituent bodies, it follows that it would be fair also to have some assessment of the “standing” of these bodies, if they are to continue to be invited to nominate representatives.

15. Evaluating the standing of different bodies could be potentially sensitive, but this is where the PO's political and administrative skills could best be demonstrated. The whole appointment process can be undertaken in an open and transparent manner, allowing more organisations to send representatives more openly. The best organisations would field the best people to come forward and the whole system will benefit from the participation of better-quality members.

Transparency

16. There should be more transparency in the appointments as well as operation of the committees. In terms of appointments, more information should be provided on the background of the appointees, perhaps on the basis of information voluntarily provided by the members. On the operational aspects, some or all of the meetings of the advisory committees should be open to the public. In addition, the government should encourage more “lay members” to act as spokesperson in areas where they have expertise, thus providing more opportunity for interface between the committees and the public.

Proportionality

17. The government paper has set out reasonable guidelines, but they should not be taken as being of equal importance. For some guidelines the application is more arbitrary, and they should be used more judiciously. For example, the merit principle must be the paramount consideration, whereas the 25% gender benchmark would be a desirable rather than essential outcome. Likewise, for committees where long-term expertise would be an asset, the six-year rule should not become a deterrent in appointing long-time members.

18. Among the guiding principles, the “six-board rule” could be amplified to reflect more accurately the principle behind, i.e. the principle of reasonable workload. Different boards and committees could have highly uneven workload, hence a more accurate indicator may be the aggregate number of meetings every year, rather than the number of boards and committees.

Conclusion

19. The review is being undertaken in two phases, with the current phase on the structure and system of advisory committees. This first-phase is not an easy task, but the second phase with the more in-depth, bureau-by-bureau study of individual committees, would be even more challenging. As an endeavour to enhance the quality of the community's participation in government and administration, we believe the government and the various boards and committees will find this exercise to be very worthwhile.