Last Friday (July 22), the Chief Executive, Mr Lee Ka-chiu, appointed eight Deputy Secretaries and 11 Political Assistants, including Leung Hong-chung, son of Legislative Council President Leung Kwan-yen, as Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs and Youth Affairs.
Li Jiachao said: "As new members of the political appointment team, they will be pragmatic and enterprising, and together they will build a promising government that does practical things." In addition, four deputy directors and two political assistants were retained at the beginning of the month, and a total of 25 people have been appointed as chief executives so far. Political appointments, the remaining two deputy directors and seven political assistant positions are vacant.
In 2007, the SAR government issued the Report on Further Development of the Political Appointment System, which mentioned that the Deputy Secretary is responsible for "assisting the Secretary in handling all aspects of political work", such as setting policy goals and priorities, handling Legislative Council affairs and political ties, etc. , while the Political Assistant is responsible for "providing political support and advice to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary" and "carrying out the necessary political liaison work", including preparing speeches and articles, lobbying political parties or political groups, and liaising with the media.
The positioning of the deputy director and political assistant is unclear
Many of the deputy directors and political assistants of the Hong Kong government in the past few years have been questioned as "political vases" that do not live up to their name and are dispensable.
In particular, political assistants should be engaged in the work of contacting the parliament and the society, but their actual performance is often obscure, and some even the parliamentarians and the media do not know who they are.
In addition, the average age of political assistants is generally relatively low, and the actual candidates are mainly pro-establishment groups, which naturally further increases the perception that the relevant positions are "political rewards".
Relatively speaking, the exposure rate of the deputy director is generally higher than that of the political assistant, but his role is always sandwiched between the director of the policy bureau and the permanent secretary or other senior civil servants. The former has the final decision-making power, and the latter follows up the implementation of specific policies. Therefore, the authority of the Deputy Secretary is less clear than that of the political assistants.
More often, they only really enter the public eye during the period when the acting director is absent, and the actual role is close to the backup.
Furthermore, whether it is a deputy secretary or a political assistant, although they both take over the political appointments of the chief executive and engage in political work, they do not have the power and responsibility to make key decisions, and their "political connections" can be reduced to "voices" at any time.
There are also some members of parliament or social elites who have their own voices that can directly reach the director, or even the director or chief executive, so they deliberately bypass the deputy director or political assistant to make demands. This situation will also weaken the role of the deputy bureau and political assistant.
Empowering decision-making while enhancing assessment
The deputy bureau and political assistant are not only the deputy bureau chief's deputy, but also an important source of future political talents, not to mention that hiring them costs a lot of public money, so they should play a more active role.
An analogy is the addition of three deputy secretaries-general in the restructuring of the current-term government structure.
In the past, there were also individual deputy directors who were dedicated to promoting specific policies in their areas of expertise. For example, when Su Jinliang was the deputy director of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, he promoted the implementation of the Competition Law. Unfortunately, there are very few similar cases.
In addition, a major feature of the current government in appointing candidates for political assistants is the inclusion of a large number of people with media backgrounds or educational backgrounds. This arrangement is believed to enhance the new government's ability to explain and reduce social resistance to future policy measures.
However, it is not true that previous administrations have not used such figures as political assistants, but the results seem unsatisfactory.
If political assistants are to be truly effective in improving public relations, Hong Kong rulers should also give them greater responsibilities and demands.
Today, Li Jiachao emphasized that candidates for deputy bureau and political assistant will "do practical things" and "promote", so they should be assigned more meaningful tasks like the deputy director, instead of hiding behind the scenes and leaving idle.
As the new government is about to set “Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)” for designated tasks, the deputy bureau and political assistants who are politically appointed officials should undoubtedly also accept the relevant assessment arrangements, so that they can hopefully get rid of the “political” through actual political achievements. stigma such as "vases" and "political rewards".
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