Ahead of his policy address next month, observers say that unless there is a fundamental adjustment of mindset among officials, as well as physical change in the established consultation system, it will be difficult for Mr Tsang to live up to his election promises.

After the handover, the Hong Kong government has continued to rely on the inherited system of advisory committees, which was the main way for the British colonial administration to gauge the public's views.

More importantly, the system that evolved into more than 400 specialised advisory and statutory bodies was seen as a means of demonstrating that the government had a mandate to introduce policies in the absence of representative democracy.

But with the gradual reawakening of civil society, observers say the present system of gauging the public's views has become obsolete.

Ivan Choy Chi-keung, a political scientist at Chinese University, said many of the appointees to these advisory and statutory bodies, who were either distinguished figures in society or active members of district groups, were distant from the masses.

'The government can no longer rely on the present consultative system and claim that public views have been adequately heard. What Mr Tsang should do is not consult after coming up with a policy, but know what people want before the policy is formulated,' he said.

One big criticism of the system is that it is a top-down process. Normally, consultation papers on selected policy issues are issued, followed by publicity campaigns to draw public attention and responses.

But critics say most consultations are either too technical to attract public involvement or too superficial to warrant high-quality public input. Some observers say the government is acutely aware of the problem and efforts are being made to address it.

An example, according to the chairman of the Council for Sustainable Development, Edgar Cheng Wai-kin, is the new approach taken by that body since its establishment in 2003 in dealing with issues - among them air quality, which is a priority for the Tsang administration.

Writing in the South China Morning Post in June, Mr Cheng said: 'The council ... has developed an engagement process aimed at moving beyond rhetoric to practice. It focuses on participation at every level. This reflects the importance of learning from all sectors, as well as the need to build a consensus from the bottom up on issues as important as air quality. The initiative for consultation does not need to come from the top; we are open to ideas and intelligence from the community. It differs from the usual models of consultation used by our government, in which policy bureaus table ideas and invite opinion.'

The council seeks out policy areas that need priority and gathers the public's views for the government through forums, group discussions and questionnaires.

But this attempt at a bottom-up approach has had problems.

In a year-long consultation process on sustainable development strategy begun in 2004, the council collected more than 1,900 submissions from 1,400 people.

Although the report recommended new targets - such as sending only 25 per cent of waste to landfills by 2014, and reducing the city's waste by 1 per cent a year meanwhile - critics said the process did not take enough stakeholders' views into account.

There were similar complaints about the council's report on population.

In line with its practice of relying heavily on questionnaires, the consultation collected views through 1,691 comment cards and from views expressed in 26 public meetings. The views were analysed by the Polytechnic University and used as a basis for making recommendations, which critics said were watered down by excluding many of the views.

Nonetheless, said Albert Lai Kwong-tak, member of a council subcommittee and chairman of the community-based People's Council for Sustainable Development, the government-appointed body headed by Mr Cheng was taking a fresh approach.

'This sort of engagement with the public is a step forward, because it can reach out to sectors which were less frequently consulted in the past. But important gaps still exist, making it difficult for accountable decision-making,' Mr Lai said.

He said structural bottlenecks often appeared when a lot of views were put together, resulting in the screening out of proposals which could be seen as threatening the vested interests of certain groups.

'The ultimate reason to engage the public and heed their views is to make policy accountable to the people. But as long as the government distrusts the people with a lack of full democracy, officials will be biased towards influential groups with vested interests,' Mr Lai said.

Also of concern are suspicions of government manipulation of the consultation process and fears it will not act on the recommendations produced.

In its 2004 consultation, the government attempted to gain public consensus on heritage conservation policy at a conceptual level, but the response was not enthusiastic. Most of the views came from professionals and concern groups, and the government had to start another consultation earlier this year amid growing public interest in heritage protection.

The pan-democratic camp also voiced fears that the green paper on constitutional reform, which lays out hundreds of options for reaching universal suffrage, with the government taking no established position, would generate no consensus.

This fear was justified by an earlier experience. The government was criticised for failing adequately to heed the public's views during its consultation on constitutional reform in 2004 and 2005.

Despite strong public calls for progress towards universal suffrage, the government made a report to Beijing saying the pace should not be too quick - before the National People's Congress issued its decision barring the introduction of full democracy in 2007.

After months of consultation, a government taskforce proposed a slight increase in the number of Legislative Council seats, and the enlargement of the Election Committee which selects the chief executive. But it did not address the question of when universal suffrage could be introduced. The proposal was voted down by Legco because it was too conservative.

Rose Wu Lo-sai, a human rights activist, said there was a general grievance among community groups that officials did not understand or even care for the views of parties involved.

'The high officials have absolutely no idea of what it is like at the grass roots because they sit in their air-conditioned rooms to make policies. They do not listen, resulting in policies which are not flesh and blood,' Ms Wu said.

While most observers believe officials need to learn to trust people's views more, there seems to be general agreement on the need for change in the membership of advisory and statutory bodies - appointments to which are sometimes seen as political rewards for distinguished figures.

Christine Loh Kung-wai, head of the policy think-tank Civic Exchange, who has conducted several research projects on governance and democracy, said the pool of prospective candidates must be expanded.

'The government has to find more people with competence, because very often we see the same group of people being reappointed again and again to key advisory positions year after year,' Ms Loh said.

The government's appointment in January of three young professional figures from The 30s Group to the Antiquities Advisory Board reflected an awareness of the need for new blood.

The Bauhinia Foundation - formed by supporters of the chief executive - drew on overseas experience in a research report in July, saying a civic engagement code should be created to guide officials on how to gather and deal with public opinion.

It cited Canada among countries with such a code. In that country, community groups were expected to help identify priority issues, help set the agenda of discussion and design of policy and get involved in the implementation and monitoring of policies and assessing their impact, it said.

Despite their rivalry in the chief executive election, Alan Leong Kah-kit, the challenger from the Civic Party, agreed with Mr Tsang's wish to engage the public, saying that a code of practice for engagement should be introduced. In his election platform, Mr Leong said that as well as needing to empower specialist panels to find members they considered suitable and ensuring a strict rotation of membership, citizens' panels should be set up to help channel the public's views.

But a government source said that rather than a fundamental change to the established system of advisory bodies, a change in the mindset of government leadership was more important.

'In the past, when officials dealt with trade or community groups, some might have held the attitude that these groups only represented sectoral interests. So it was not unusual to dismiss the groups' demand whenever their views were not in line with established principles, such as government budgetary constraints,' the source said.

Citing the Kai Tak development project and several heritage conservation issues recently, the official said the government was determined to change its mindset and was prepared to listen.

'At least right now you will no longer see some official coming out and saying, 'I am good, but you are evil and your views won't be entertained', when faced with radical groups such as those opposing the removal of Queen's Pier,' the official said.

Sound advice

Approximate number of advisory and statutory bodies: 400

Total membership of advisory bodies: 4,000

Number of advisory and statutory bodies with ministers or permanent secretaries as members: 70

Donald Tsang's walkabouts in the districts between June 2005 and September 2007: 22

Number of consultation meetings between Mr Tsang and various groups before policy address:

32 (2006)

36 (2007)

What the experts say the chief executive should do

1 Introduce a code of practice on civic engagement (The Bauhinia Foundation and Civic Party legislator Alan Leong)

2 Engage more community groups to identify and contribute to debate on public issues before policies are made (political scientist Ivan Choy)

3 Be open to ideas and initiatives from the public, and build consensus through a bottom-up process rather than having government bureaus tabling ideas before inviting public opinion (Sustainable Development Council chairman Edgar Cheng)

4 Raise the competency of advisory and statutory committees by appointing more members from outside pro-establishment groups (Civic Exchange head Christine Loh)

5 Bring about a change of mindset and trust the public more when consulting, and make the process more user-friendly, fair and transparent (People's Council for Sustainable Development chairman Albert Lai)