What will a Hong Kong civil service under John Lee look like? Sector braces for shake-up with leadership hopeful’s vow of reform
- Morale takes a beating amid talk of revamp, even among elite corps of administrative officers
- Beijing appears to doubt the loyalty of city’s civil service as a whole, HKU scholar John Burns says
Kelly Yeung* is part of Hong Kong’s “elite of the elites”, the 670-strong corps of administrative officers (AO) who form the upper echelons of the city’s civil service.
No more than 30 select officers with sterling academic credentials are added each year to the group, whose highly paid members occupy top government jobs and are responsible for drafting most policies.
But Yeung said everyone in her circle now had thoughts of quitting.
“Under the current political environment, there is so much that you can’t do,” she said. “The environment is also very different compared with before, and there are more situations where we need to listen to the central government.”
There have also been signs a shake-up of the civil service is imminent, with the administrative service undergoing reform.
Incumbent city leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was an AO before rising to hold political appointments. But her likely successor, John Lee Ka-chiu, is not from the elite corps, having been a policeman who rose to deputy commissioner before being made security minister.