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take. For example, it withdrew a proposal to introduce a goods and services tax after there was evident opposition to its consultation document.

There are some inconsistencies in the government’s position on openness. On the one hand, there has traditionally been a culture of secrecy about decision making; on the other, the government’s website provides a wealth of information that may be used by its critics—civil society organizations, think tanks, political parties, legislative councilors, and academics—to attack its position. This leads to a disjunction between what the government says is public opinion and the reality of critical comment and organized protest against some of its proposed measures. A more educated and better-organized civil society means that there is a need either to reform the consultation process or to change the political system.

14.2.3 Political Neutrality

Political neutrality has long been a core value of the Hong Kong civil service, but its meaning has changed somewhat over the years. In its initial formulation, it was derived from the relationship between British ministers and their senior civil servants. It was based on the idea that senior civil servants should “speak truth to power,” placing before ministers different possible courses of action, with their likely costs and benefits, but implementing whatever political choice was finally made, fully and without reservation. Because, until 2002, Hong Kong’s senior civil servants were also in effect ministers, the notion of advising themselves was clearly redundant. What political neutrality came to mean instead was that civil servants should serve the public interest without fear or favor and that they should have no hesitation in drawing the potential advantages or disadvantages of proposed policies to their superiors.

While power to make policy was entrenched in the small number of administrative grade officials, this notion of political neutrality worked well enough. After 1997, however, Chinese government officials, some Executive Council members and some pro-Beijing politicians were concerned that senior civil servants, who had all served under the colonial government, were not as loyal or as subject to political direction as they should be [38]. This resulted in some friction between Executive Council members, who were responsible for advising the chief executive on policy, and senior civil servants. In 2001, in her valedictory speech, the head of the civil service, Anson Chan On-sang, who had outlined the core values of the civil service a few years previously, expressed her belief that the system was becoming too politicized, opening the way for civil servants to obtain advancement by “currying favour, political correctness, second-guessing and shoe-shining [39].” This, she said, was far less likely to happen when the obligation of “speaking truth to power” was observed.

When the Principal Officials Accountability System was introduced in 2002, principal officials became politicians and were expected to exercise more direct control over their bureaus and departments. There was greater emphasis on loyalty to the government and less on the public service ethos. Civil servants were still expected to give impartial advice but were also expected to implement political decisions, which had sometimes not been adequately considered in the departments and bureaus [40]. The result was to reinforce an already hierarchical system without the ameliorating influence of a civil service that had been committed to the realization of the public interest as its first consideration.

14.3 Impartiality and Service to the Community

Impartiality in the execution of public duties and dedication and diligence in service to the community is a core value that has changed significantly over time. During the colonial period, the

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government was deliberately distant from the population, resting its claim to legitimacy on the rule of law and efficient, impartial administration. It was organized on traditional colonial lines with a large, paramilitary police force. The community perception of government was that it was best avoided. In the 1980s and 1990s, public sector reforms were aimed at changing that image. Their purpose was to re-legitimate the civil service prior to the transfer of sovereignty [41]. Three reform measures were particularly important: improving the culture of service; reforming the police force; and creating institutions that might serve to promote civil liberties.

The government saw the development of a culture of service as an important means of bridging the gap with society. In 1992, the government began to introduce performance pledges which were focused particularly on the level of service of those in frontline positions and which often stressed appropriate behavior in dealing with customers. Generally, civil servants were expected to be more open, accountable, and customer-friendly [42]. For the most part, the reforms were adopted with enthusiasm. Departments organized community liaison groups, organized customer satisfaction surveys, spruced up their offices, and held competitions for the best suggestions for improving service. By 1995, “Serving the Community,” with its four principles of “being accountable,” “living within our means,” “managing for performance,” and “developing our culture of service”, had become government policy [43].

Serving the Community remained government policy after the handover in 1997. However, the traditional government concern with efficiency rather than responsiveness tended to receive more emphasis. Under the increased pressure of budgetary deficits, the government sought to cut positions and enhance productivity. Performance pledges were directed more toward targets than to the qualities that civil servants might bring to their relationships with customers. E-government was embraced as a means of dealing with customers online rather than in person. The culture of service was not entirely overturned, but the cuts may have had an adverse impact on some departments and on subvented organizations, such as social welfare agencies, which could no longer provide the same level of service.

One of the major departments in need of reform in the late colonial period was the police force. The ICAC had ensured that it was much less corrupt than in the past, but in structure, function, and attitude it was still very much a paramilitary force. It was also dominated by expatriates at the senior levels, a situation that was clearly unlikely to continue after 1997. There were some initial attempts to create a more community-based police force in the 1970s and 1980s, but the major thrust came with the introduction of organizational reforms shortly before the handover. The force began to develop projects with a community focus, including reviving neighborhood watch programs, re-designing police buildings to make them more friendly, school liaison, improving service quality through sharing best practices and continuing to support the longrunning and popular youth-focused Junior Police Call. In addition, the force sought to improve the quality and educational levels of those recruited at constable level. One criticism of the reforms has been that they are a one-way street: that there is actually very little public involvement in the way the police force is run and that the focus is still very much on preventing crime rather than developing harmonious relationships with the public. Satisfaction surveys show improvements in police-public relations, especially in terms of courtesy, but community relations scored lowest of all police activities in one survey and over-zealous police action during street demonstrations has occasionally worsened relations [44].

In the final period of colonial rule, the Hong Kong government introduced legislation and created some regulatory institutions that were intended to quell fears about civil liberties after 1997. A Bill of Rights was passed in 1991 following the Tiananmen Square massacre. The ombudsman was given additional powers to allow complaints to be received directly from the public,

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rather than through the Legislative Council, and to conduct independent investigations. An Equal Opportunities Commission was established to combat discrimination. A Code of Access to Information was promulgated and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was set up [45].

The intent of these reforms was to ensure that the government complied with ethical and legal requirements after 1997. For civil servants, the reforms meant that they had to respond to the practical issue of how to incorporate these new measures into their work. Executive officers found, for example, that they were affected by the Code of Access to Information and the privacy legislation because they had to be more careful in handling personal data [46]. They were less directly affected by the increased powers of the ombudsman or the Equal Opportunities Commission. Nonetheless, some civil servants do have to answer the ombudsman’s queries and strictures. In 2008, the ombudsman received 5386 complaints of which 247 were fully investigated (171 related to “topical” complaints about the same issue). All but 21 of the complaints that were fully investigated were found to be substantiated in whole or in part [47].

The new agencies have also provided some checks on what the government may or may not do. Since they are set up as statutory bodies, they have a degree of autonomy in their relationships with the government. The Equal Opportunities Commission, for example, successfully took the government to court over the issue of sex discrimination in school placements [48]. There have also been frequent challenges to the government under the Bill of Rights Ordinance. Opposing views, backed by legal authority, may help to provide alternative ethical reference points for civil servants who otherwise might find themselves in an organizational environment in which they were expected, unquestioningly, to do what they were told.

14.4 Conclusions

In assessing how the Hong Kong government’s core values have been applied to public service ethics, three critical relationships have been identified. The first concerns how civil servants themselves behave in the execution of their duties. Are they honest? Do they obey the law? In any organization the size of the Hong Kong government, there will inevitably be those who break the rules. In general, though, it may be said that the vast majority of Hong Kong civil servants are honest and that they do respect the law. They have been required to be honest by stringent anti-corrup- tion laws, encouraged to be so by generous salaries, and lectured at length on the virtues of doing so by the ICAC. The government itself has not always been clear on what are acceptable solutions to the ethical dilemmas that civil servants may face. There is nothing on whistle-blowing—other than scarcely veiled advice not to do it—and many of the offences of which civil servants may be found guilty are unclear and deliberately poorly defined.

The second issue concerns the accountability of the government. Do the present arrangements ensure accountability? Is the emphasis on political control over political neutrality in the public interest? The answer to both questions would appear to be negative. The rationale for the Principal Officials Accountability System was that it would improve accountability, but there is little evidence to suggest that the government is any more accountable than before the changes were made. In important respects, senior civil servants are less accountable to the public if they exchange political neutrality and a public service ethos for unquestioning loyalty to the government.

Finally, the relationship between the public service and the population raises significant ethical issues. Is the civil service impartial? Is it responsive to citizen needs? It appears that the reforms of the 1990s have become embedded in the culture of the civil service. The agencies that were created to protect and promote civil liberties have been an important step in both constraining the

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19.ICAC and CSB, Ethical Leadership in Action, 2007, passim.

20.Civil Service Bureau, Summary Guide on Civil Service Regulations, Mimeo, Civil Service Bureau, 1997.

21.Burns, J.P., Government Capacity and the Hong Kong Civil Service, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 2004, 245–53.

22.Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, CFA upholds bribery conviction of senior police officer and businesswoman. Press Release, May 26, 2005.

23.Court of Final Appeal, HKSAR v. Sin Kam-wah and another, Folio No. Criminal Appeal 136/2004, www.legalref.judiciary.gov.hk, 2005.

24.Civil Service Bureau, Civil Servants’ Guide to Good Practices, 2005, 25.

25.Ibid., 19.

26.Legislative Council Panel on Public Service, Post-retirement Employment of Ms Elaine Chung, Former Deputy Director of Housing/Deputy Secretary for Housing, Mimeo, Hong Kong, March 11, 2005.

27.Hansard, Proceedings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 2005, 4392–4666.

28.Fanny W.Y.F. and E. Wu, Arculli heads committee to review jobs policy for ex-civil servants, South China Morning Post, October 1, 2008.

29.Committee on Review of Post-Service Outside Work for Directorate Civil Servants, Report on Review of Post-Service Outside Work for Directorate Civil Servants, Logistics Department, Hong Kong, July 2009.

30.Lui, T.T. and Scott, I., Administrative ethics in a Chinese society: the case of Hong Kong, in Handbook of Administrative Ethics, T.L. Cooper, Ed., 2nd ed., Marcel Dekker, New York, 2001, Chapter 31.

31.ICAC and CSB, Ethical Leadership in Action, 2007, 34–38.

32.Scott, I., Public Administration in Hong Kong: Regime Change and Its Impact on the Public Sector, Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 2005, 52, 148.

33.Burns, Government Capacity and the Hong Kong Civil Service, 2004, 161.

34.Scott, Public Administration in Hong Kong, 2005, 54–62.

35.www.yearbook.gov.hk/2008/en/pdf EO1.pdf, 16.

36.Chung, W.H., The Role of Advisory Bodies in the Policy Process in Hong Kong, Unpublished MPA dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 2006, 35–98.

37.Centre for Civil Society and Governance, From Consultation to Civic Engagement: The Road to Better Policy-making and Governance in Hong Kong, Mimeo, Hong Kong, 2007.

38.Cheung, J., Civil service neutrality is a British thing: state leader, South China Morning Post, October 17, 2003.

39.Chan, A., Speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration at an Asia Society luncheon, Hong Kong Government Press Release, April 19, 2001.

40.Civil Service Bureau, Circular Setting Out the Working Relationship between Civil Servants and Principal O cials under the Accountability System, Legislative Council Paper CB (2) 2467/01-02(01), Hong Kong, June 28, 2002.

41.Cheung, A.B.L., Public sector reform and the re-legitimation of public bureaucratic power: the case of Hong Kong, International Journal of Public Sector Management, 9 (5–6), 37, 1996.

42.Hong Kong Government, Serving the Community, Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1995, 11.

43.Ibid., 6.

44.Lo, C.W-H. and Cheuk, A.C-Y., Community policing in Hong Kong: development, performance and constraints, Policing, 27 (1), 97, 2004; Jiao, A., The Police in Hong: A Contemporary View, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 2007, passim.

45.Scott, Public Administration in Hong Kong, 2005, 309.

46.Scott, I., Public sector reform and middle managers in Hong Kong, Asian Journal of Public Administration, 22 (2), 2001, 107.

47.The Ombudsman, Annual Report of the Ombudsman, Hong Kong, Logistics Department, 2009, 17, 21.

48.Scott, Public Administration in Hong Kong, 2005, 333–35.

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