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Vivienne Chow

The next chief executive of the West Kowloon Cultural District may get a deputy or a chief operating officer to ease the pressure of the job.
This follows the sudden departure of arts hub chief Graham Sheffield last week for health reasons.
The idea by the board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority was tabled at yesterday's Legislative Council meeting. Chief Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen,  chairman of the board, answered inquiries from lawmakers about Sheffield's abrupt resignation. 
Many believe that Sheffield's departure was triggered by operational  issues rather than health problems. But Tang was adamant that Sheffield left because of his health, showing three doctors' notes to prove the point. He described the resignation as unfortunate. 
 Sheffield quit after only months  on the job. Tang said the former artistic director of the Barbican Centre in London first expressed his wish to go on December 15.
This was just days before he flew back to London after attending a Christmas gathering with the media on December 17. Sheffield appeared chatty  at the time, albeit a little tired.
Tang said he tried to talk Sheffield out of resigning. But a week later, Tang received a doctor's note instructing Sheffield to stay in London and said he should be released from duty immediately.
A second doctor's note came through at the end of last month,  again saying that he should remain in London. '[The doctor] insisted that he should not travel back to Hong Kong ... and should under no circumstances go back alone,' Tang told lawmakers, quoting part of the doctor's notes.
The doctor repeated the instructions in a third note and suggested 58-year old Sheffield end his three-year contract with the Hong Kong government with immediate effect.
'[Sheffield] is not fit to travel back to Hong Kong,' Tang read from the note. But he refused to disclose details of his illness or the identity of the doctor. 
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen  agreed to let Sheffield go last Friday.
Some lawmakers remained unconvinced yesterday. But Tang said: 'If you have a doctor saying it three times and you still don't believe it, I cannot understand why.'  
Sin Chung-kai, chairman of the board's remuneration committee,  said Sheffield had been exempted from the  required three-month notice. No compensation from either side was involved.
Lawmakers yesterday continued to question the arts hub's operation as Sheffield is not the only person to have walked out since the authority was set up in 2009.
 Sin revealed that between April 1, 2009 and last Friday, 15 staffers have resigned - including Angus Cheng who quit his executive director's job after just seven days. At present, the authority has 58 staff and has posted a staff turnover  of more than 25 per cent in about 11/2 years.  
 Some lawmakers asked if the workload of heading the HK$21.6 billion arts hub was too much to handle, especially for someone new to Hong Kong.
 'Do you need to have a deputy CEO, especially for a CEO from overseas?' asked Democrat Lee Wing-tat, vice-chairman of the joint subcommittee monitoring the arts hub's development. 
Tang said that the board would look into reviewing the authority's structure.  The hub's chief executive heads seven divisions, each led by an executive director, and  has an office, led by another director,  to support the  chief's role. 
'There may be a COO [chief operating officer],' Tang said. 'We will strive to improve the organisation's structure and will see if some of the CEO's duties can be split up and shared by someone else.'




Next arts hub chief may get a deputy to share workload