The bigger the better for Hong Kong government revamp? Public policy experts divided over expansion plan for bureaus

The Hong Kong government's plan to increase the current 13 bureaus to 15 has divided public policy experts, with some saying the new framework will speed up implementation of initiatives while others argue bigger is not necessarily better.

The HK$94.8 million (US$12.07 million) expansion plan, announced on Tuesday, also involves adding three deputy secretaries under the city's highest-ranking politically appointed officials: the chief secretary, financial secretary and secretary for justice.

The justice minister will get a political assistant for the first time, a privilege already available to the chief executive, the city's No 2 and 3 and other bureau heads.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

It will be the largest administration yet in terms of the number of bureaus since the city adopted a political accountability system in 2002, when there were 11 such top government branches.

Former transport and housing minister Anthony Cheung Bing-leung told the Post it had been a global trend that the size of governments was getting bigger because of growing calls for more public services.

"Whenever there is a change in government, the new administration tends to revamp the structure to cater to changing expectations from members of the public," he said.

Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said the new framework would be "conducive to strengthening the leadership of the government and control of the executive branch and the civil service".

The purpose of the restructuring, he added, was to "implement the chief executive's major policy initiatives in a better and faster manner".

But bigger did not necessarily mean better, argued John Burns, honorary professor of the department of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

"More bureaus create more silos and therefore more coordination problems," he said.

Cheung, now research chair professor of public administration at Education University, said it was unavoidable that more expenditure would be incurred with the formation of more policy bureaus.

"Of course, we need to be vigilant about the expansion of government but the question we should ask is whether the extra spending will bring significant benefit in delivery of public services and improvement in governance," he said. "The new government will be put to the test to prove that the benefits will outweigh the extra cost."

Details of how outgoing leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor would help restructure the administration of her successor, John Lee Ka-chiu, came to light on Tuesday for the first time, when her government submitted the proposal to the Legislative Council.

A Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau will be set up to take over the three areas currently under the Home Affairs Bureau, which will become the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau. Both of these bureaus, alongside seven other existing ones, will be overseen by the chief secretary.

The Environment Bureau will be renamed the Environment and Ecology Bureau, with the Hong Kong Observatory under it, taking over food safety. The Food and Health Bureau will also be renamed the Health Bureau.

The Transport and Housing Bureau will be split into two, namely the Housing Bureau and the Transport and Logistics Bureau, while the Innovation and Technology Bureau will be expanded into the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau. The financial secretary will be in charge of these three new teams.

Repurposing bureaus has happened over the years. In 2002, then city leader Tung Chee-hwa trimmed the original 17-bureau administration led by civil servants down to 11 when he introduced a new system to put politically appointed officials in charge.

In 2007, Tung's successor, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, added the Labour and Welfare Bureau.

The current 13-bureau model took shape during the administration of Leung Chun-ying, who introduced the Innovation and Technology Bureau in 2015. Leung had planned to set up a new cultural bureau, but the proposal was shelved in 2012 after opposition lawmakers mounted a filibuster against it.

The number of civil servants was cut back to 160,000 at one point from some 200,000 in 2003.

More positions are expected to be added to the current 190,000-strong civil service force under the HK$61.9 million worth of changes proposed by Lee's end of the jointly conceived plan.

"[The reorganisation] allows us to solve relevant problems in a more focused manner ... this will create synergies among departments and lead to a clearer division of labour," Lee said on Tuesday.

Political commentator Lau said the reorganisation showed that safeguarding national security, solving land and housing issues, developing new industries, promoting Hong Kong's integration into the overall national development, promoting national education and caring for young people were the priorities for the new government.

"This also enables the governing team to be better connected with the community socially and politically," he said.

HKU's Burns said the government could work on "horizontal linkages" by improving communication across the board.

"Lack of coordination was a critical problem identified in the fifth Covid-19 wave," he said, citing a recent example. "How will the restructuring address this? Fundamentally, there is no one best way to organise the government."

Britain-based political scholar Steve Tsang, director of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, said the government would have to be judged on whether it had provided a clear explanation that underpinned the reorganisation.

"What exactly are the deputies meant to do? Are they real deputies with clear portfolios or are they likely to be a kind of 'political commissars', as Hong Kong becomes more integrated with mainland China?" he said.

"I do not know and am not saying that they are, but recent changes in Hong Kong mean that such a question is no longer irrelevant to ask."

The price tag had also gone up twofold since Lee added more proposals to the HK$32.8 million plan originally floated by Lam, having previously said "the secretaries [and deputy secretaries of departments], who are at a higher level than bureau chiefs, certainly need more relevant support".

But Chinese University political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung said he believed Lee had more to answer, with the current package seemingly departing from the prudent approach of previous administrations in creating key official posts.

"The new incurred salaries are expected to [increase the burden on] the recurrent spending of the government," he said.

"He has to address why we need a swelled-up administration when Hong Kong's economy was hit hard by Covid-19 and that the non-recurrent spending on national security already cost another HK$8 million."

Additional reporting by Gary Cheung, Lilian Cheng and Natalie Wong

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.