The Civil Service under One Country, Two Systems: The Cases of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China

Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong's and China's civil services are changing, but they clearly are not converging. The civil service reforms made in Hong Kong and China appear to be heading toward two logical extremes: one toward strengthening political authority over the civil service, and the other instituting greater institutionalization. What appears to be a problem in Hong Kong may be seen as a solution in China. Not only reform problems, but also reform options, are defined in relation to wider political institutions and changing socioeconomic dynamics. The study shows that while some things do need to be uniform, such as loyalty to the state and central government, a great deal of flexibility regarding administrative systems within one country is possible. There can be a modern nation without a truly national civil service.     

'Building a Better World'

Garran Oration Royal Institute of Public Administration Australia National Conference, 29 November -1 December 2003     

加强企业内部安全保卫工作浅析

随着改革开放的不断深入 ,市场经济建设的迅速发展 ,我国的社会治安形势和企业单位内部治安状况发生了很大变化 ,出现了许多新情况、新问题。加强企业内保工作一是及时调整内保工作职能 ;二是加强情报信息工作 ;三是健全群防群治组织 ;四是坚持打击和防范并举 ;五是提升内保民警和保卫工作的地位。     

The Federal Line Item Veto Experiment: After the Supreme Court Ruling,What's Next?

The federal line item veto has ceased to exist, thanks to the Supreme Court's June 1998 ruling invalidating the expansion of the president's rescission authority that was contained in the Line Item Veto Act. This article reviews the application of the Act during 1997, its effect on spending and the deficit, the judicial reaction to its use, and the prospects for the restoration of some version of the power. President Clinton was quite restrained in the use of his new power, with the exception of his cancellations in the Military Construction appropriation bill; these were ultimately restored by the Congress. Because of the president's restraint, the Line Item Veto Act had a miniscule affect on spending and the deficit; total cancellations represented less than .04 percent of FY98 discretionary budget authority. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held that the Act violated Article I, Section 7 because it created a Constituionally impermissable way for the president to change laws. There is no clear fallback position for supporters of the Act; alternatives are either difficult to enact, hard to administer, or too weak to be considered an effective substitute. Given the problems in enacting any alternative, it may be that the federal line item veto will end up only as a historical anomaly.     

Contracting–out social services

Abstract: Despite the enormous share of social services in government spending and the strong incentives on government to rationalize services, the alternative service delivery (asd) literature has given little attention to social–service delivery. In our paper, we review current approaches taken to social–service delivery in Ontario by the Ministry of Community and Social Services (mcss). Although the mcss retains responsibility for the social–services system, it provides social services almost exclusively through private non–profit agencies under purchase of service contracts. Two themes emerge from our examination of these relationships. First, the standard privatization model has limited application to social–services delivery. Contracts are generally not awarded in a competitive fashion, and contract termination discipline is rarely applied. Given the inadequacies of current performance measures for social services, monitoring contract performance is difficult. Second, the success of attempts to shift provision to private non–governmental entities is intimately linked to the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms, especially outcome–based performance measures. Improving performance measurement is therefore an important priority. In addition to advocating further research into the effectiveness of social services, one interesting mcss initiative has been to look to client communities to help monitor the performance of agencies. We conclude that among the different institutional approaches to social–service delivery, contracting with non–profits is the one that currently seem most appropriate. Sommaire: Malgré la part énorme des dépenses gouvernementales consacrée aux services sociaux et malgré les efforts gouvemementaux pour rationaliser les services, les ouvrages publiés sur la prestation de services par des moyens de rechange n'ont consacré que peu d'attention à la prestation des services sociaux. Nous examinons dam cet article les méthodes adoptées pour la prestation des services sociaux en Ontario par le ministére des Services sociaux et communautaires (mssc). Même s'il retient la responsabilité du réseau des services sociaux, le mssc foumit les services sociaux presque exclusivement par I'intermédiaire d'organismes privés à but non lucratif, en vertu de contrats d'achat de services. En examinant ces rapports, nous en dégageons deux thémes. Premiérement, le modéle de privatisation standard ne s'applique que de maniére limitée à la prestation des services sociaux. Les contrats ne sont généralement pas accordés de maniére concurrentielle, et on n'utilise que rarement la résiliation de contrats en tant que mesure disciplinaire. II est difficile de surveiller la qualité d'exécution des contrats, vu l'insuffisance des mesures de rende–ment actuelles concernant les services sociaux. Deuxièmement, le transfert de I'exé–cution aux organismes privés non gouvernementaux ne peut réussir qu'en présence de mécanismes de responsabilisation adéquats, et en particulier de moyens permet–tant de mesurer le rendement en fonction des résultats obtenus. I1 importe donc d'améliorer les moyens de mesure du rendement. Selon le mssc, en plus des recher–ches suppéementaires concernant l'efficacite des services sociaux, il faut faire appel aux groupes de clients pour aider À surveiller le rendement des organismes. En conclusion, parmi les diverses méthodes institutionnelles de prestation des services sociaux, la sous–traitance faisant appel aux secteurs à but non lucratif semble çtre aujourd'hui la plus appropriwaee. [I]t is no exaggeration to say the state and local governments tend not to know what results their social service contracts are buying. Because competition is low, they have little opportunity to test the market to see what alternatives they have. Few resources are spent to look past what contractors themselves report. The political system has few incentives to dig deeper and many more incentives to maintain the status quo— The problems with oversight underline earlier observations: whatever advantages contracting–out for social services might produce, greater efficiency through market–tested competition is not one of them. State and local governments are engaging in the equivalent of a shopping trip while blindfolded, with little effort spent to squeeze the tomatoes or thump the watermelons