Consultative process to be reformed

July 9, 2019

Chief Executive Carrie Lam:
The Government has the most important duty to improve the situation. So on July 1 I announced in my speech that we will adopt a new governance style in order to ensure that we are able and capable of listening to views from different sectors before we implement policies.

We will reform the existing consultative machinery which basically comprises a large number of consultative advisory committees with members appointed by the Government into these committees to offer us advice. I feel that we need to be more innovative. In other words, sometimes we may not need a formal committee, we should build more open platforms to facilitate dialogues in a very frank and exchange manner, and to make sure that whoever joins the committees or these dialogues come from different backgrounds, so they are not homogeneous of one group, they should come from a more diverse background, so that we can really receive views from a wider spectrum of society. 

One of the important committees that will undergo, I will say a major overhaul, will be the Youth Development Commission (YDC), because this commission was set up to co-ordinate initiatives relating to young people and to address young people’s concerns, so I hope that the YDC will undergo a major changeover to a more open dialogue and platform to listen to views from young people of various backgrounds. 

I said on July 1 that I would reach out to more young people of different backgrounds to hear them out. And that’s why last week I contacted the presidents of two universities - the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong - to seek their help in arranging smaller sessions, closed-door sessions, so that we can listen without any sort of constraints. I realise that this idea is not welcomed by the student unions, they instead counterpropose that we should have an open dialogue. I now readily welcome and agree to do this open dialogue with our student representatives and we will follow up. I hope this open dialogue will be conducted without any prerequisites on my part or on the part of the students.

(To watch the video with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Government will reform the way it listens to the community’s views in order to better gauge public sentiment, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today.

Mrs Lam told reporters ahead of today’s Executive Council meeting, that the Government will adopt a new governance style to ensure that it can listen to views from different sectors before implementing policies.

She said the existing consultative machinery, which basically comprises a large number of consultative advisory committees with members appointed by the Government, will be reformed.

“I feel that we need to be more innovative. In other words, sometimes we may not need a formal committee, we should build more open platforms to facilitate dialogues in a very frank and exchange manner, and to make sure that whoever joins the committees or these dialogues come from different backgrounds, so they are not homogeneous of one group, they should come from a more diverse background, so that we can really receive views from a wider spectrum of society.”

Mrs Lam pointed out that the Youth Development Commission, which was set up to co-ordinate initiatives relating to young people and to address their concerns, will undergo a major changeover to a more open dialogue and platform to listen to views from young people of various backgrounds.

The Chief Executive also noted that in her speech at the reception for the 22nd anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on July 1, she said she would reach out to more young people to hear them out.

“That is why last week I contacted the presidents of two universities - the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong - to seek their help in arranging smaller sessions, closed-door sessions, so that we can listen without any sort of constraints.

“I realise that this idea is not welcomed by the student unions, they instead counterpropose that we should have an open dialogue. I now readily welcome and agree to do this open dialogue with our student representatives and we will follow up. I hope this open dialogue will be conducted without any prerequisites on my part or on the part of the students.”