The Public Sector in Hong Kong

9. Policy Implementation

9 Policy Implementation In the previous two chapters, our attention was primarily focused on problems associated with budgeting and with policy formulation. Traditional policy-making models tend to assume that, if financial resources are available, if policy is properly formulated, and if appropriate organisations are in place to achieve the intended objectives, the actual process of implementation should be unproblematic.1 In practice, this assumption is clearly not tenable. Many problems may prevent the realisation of policy objectives: communication between the policy-makers and implementers may be inadequate, objectives may be imprecisely stated, the means chosen to implement the policy may be inappropriate or those affected by the policy may respond in ways which had not been anticipated by its initiators. Indeed, because there are so many different variables involved, some believe that perfect implementation is practically impossible.2 Policy-makers, in consequence, cannot afford to assume that their work is finished immediately after their proposals receive official endorsement. If they wish to see their policy objectives actually achieved, they have to manage the process to its desired conclusion. In this chapter, we look more closely at policy implementation: what means the government uses to achieve its ends, to what degree it consults or coerces to ensure that its goals are realised and how the results are evaluated both by the government and those affected by its actions. A critical variable affecting policy implementation in Hong Kong has been the changing political context. Although there are still significant continuities in the means of implementing and evaluating policies, the style of policy implementation has changed considerably over time, often in response to political pressures. Prior to 1984, the assumption on which government based much of its policy-making was that of the traditional policy model: if the policy was properly formulated and properly costed, and if it took into account real concerns and problems, then authoritative direction from the government and efficient implementation by the civil service would ensure that goals were achieved. In the decade or so before 1997, policy was implemented more cautiously because the regime could not afford major policy confrontations with the public when it was already embroiled in political and constitutional controversies over the future of the territory. In the post-1997 period, implementation has become very 202 The Public Sector in Hong Kong problematic, partly because the government under Tung was initially more aggressive in its efforts to implement policies, partly because the constitutional arrangements did not allow for an adequate aggregation of demands or feedback on proposed government actions, and partly because many of the “good ideas” did not come with a strategy of implementation and were sometimes uncosted and not clearly related to other policies. In addition, there has been concerted opposition to some policy measures not only from established pressure groups but also from previously unknown organisations that emerge in response to an issue. The government cannot always easily anticipate the force or nature of the objections with which it will have to deal. In this chapter, we consider three aspects of the process of policy implementation: • policy instruments, defined here as the methods and techniques which governments use to achieve their policy objectives; • strategies of implementation, which examines the major approaches of the colonial, transitional and post-1997 regimes to implementation; and • evaluation, the way in which the Hong Kong government and the public assess its policy performance. Policy Instruments Policy instruments may be classified in many different and complex ways which reflect the wide range of methods that governments use to achieve their objectives.3 The macrolevel typology adopted here is a simple model derived from Etzioni’s division of power into coercive, remunerative and normative types. Coercive power involves the use or threat of force. Remunerative power implies the ability to control and distribute material resources and rewards. And normative power, which might also be called persuasive or manipulative or suggestive power, “rests on the allocation and manipulation of symbolic rewards.”4 Following Vedung, we may develop this further into a three-fold classification of policy instruments as regulations, economic means and information which correspond to the kinds of power identified by Etzioni. Vedung goes on to note that these might be called the stick, the carrot and the sermon, that is, the government may either force us, pay us or have us pay, or persuade us.5 To illustrate these categories in the Hong Kong context, we can take some specific examples, each of which has a prescriptive...