Lai See | Yet another damning report on government archives

Just over two years ago the Director of Audit issued a damning report on the state of the Hong Kong government's archives. The government, according to the report, had failed in just about every aspect of its remit, from looking after records, vetting them, and disposing of those no longer required. The report prompted a debate in Legco over the need for an archive law to give a legal backing to arrangements for dealing with records and archives, and to give the Government Records Service (GRS) some spine.

The then Chief Secretary Stephen Lam Sui-lung loftily told Legco such a law was unnecessary and that the government was taking "administrative" measures to address the commission's criticisms. Just over a year later the current Chief Secretary, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, was asked in Legco, given that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying had expressed his support for an archive law during the CE election campaign, had there been any progress.

In a written response Lam replied: "Despite there being no dedicated archival legislation, the essential general principles of records management have in fact been implemented in Hong Kong through administrative measures."

Despite these assurances from two chief secretaries the Ombudsman yesterday delivered yet another embarrassing report on arrangements surrounding public records and the archives. Clearly, for the past two years nothing has been done by the government. Obviously the existence of "administrative measures" is not working, and it is time this obfuscation and dishonesty by the government was brought to an end and an archive law introduced.

In his report yesterday the Ombudsman drew attention to the "constant and enormous backlogs" in the GRS and the clear and obvious shortage of staff. This again highlights a well-practiced government wheeze when it doesn't want anything done. It downgrades the professionalism of the department and doesn't give it enough staff.

Hardly surprising then that it can't do its job. The report notes 11 recent cases, including the Lamma ferry disaster, where a failure to keep proper records has led to poor decision making on the part of a government department or inability to resolve legal issues.