Influential Hong Kong group led by city’s first chief executive calls for rethink on policy-making
Report by Our Hong Kong Foundation, set up by Tung Chee-hwa, says it is time to look beyond cost benefits to deal with increasing social problems
A high-powered think tank led by the first chief executive of Hong Kong has called for a fundamental change in the way the city formulates policy.
In its third report since Tung Chee-hwa set it up in 2014, the Our Hong Kong Foundation says it is time to move away from a purely cost-benefit analysis when making policies to deal with the SAR’s growing social problems.
In the report, entitled “Social Innovation for a Better Hong Kong”, the foundation led by Tung – who is now vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – called on authorities to take into account, in a systematic way, the social impact of policy decisions as well as considering the economic costs and benefits .
Foundation member Bernard Chan, an executive councillor, said: “Traditionally output-based measurements such as GDP are probably the only benchmark.
“But increasingly in a very complicated society, we are dealing with issues such that we can no longer use monetary terms to determine whether it is appropriate or good for Hong Kong”.
Chan added that while the government has been assessing policies in non-monetary terms in the past, such as conducting environmental impact assessments, it was often on an ad hoc basis.
But if such assessment could be done across the board, Chan believed the governance of the city could be improved. “Without such scientific data, bickering [over controversial issues] would worsen,” he said.