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Following is the full text of the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, at the opening ceremony of the 10th Zonta International District 17 Conference today (Friday):

District Governor Brenda Tanjutco, Zonta International Vice-President Margit Webjorn, Mrs Betty Tung, ladies and gentlemen,

Good evening.

I was delighted to be asked to make this Keynote Speech for the 10th Zonta International District 17 Conference. My long-term involvement with Zonta, including a term as President of Hong Kong East Club in 1982 does of course make it all the more pleasing.

It is also a great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to so many regional and international representatives of Zonta to a Hong Kong that is both my home and a world class city which I believe has much to be proud of in terms of Zonta's aim of working to advance the status of women.

Women are now playing much more prominent roles in all walks of our society, particularly in political arena and public sector. In the civil service although the overall ratio of women to men has remained relatively static at one-third to two-thirds over the past 10 years, the percentage of directorate posts filled by women has increased significantly from 8% to 21%. But not too much on this or I will fuel further talk of the Handbag Club as we are known in Hong Kong.

Some of you may have read with a wry smile the recent press coverage of an article in "Management Today" describing how the changing business environment is emphasising the importance of what is seen as the female management style. The whimsical headline in the South China Morning Post was 'Feminine Touch Valued as Key to Successful Career'. Of course stereotypes such as this, though positive, have to be viewed with scepticism just like the stereotypes that held women back and led to the need for organisations such as the Zonta Club - and it is often a question of stereotypes and perceptions. I remember that lovely story of two little children playing together in the United Kingdom during the 1980's when Margaret Thatcher was in full flow. The little girl said to the little boy "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and the little boy puffed out his chest and said "Prime Minister" to which the little girl replied "but you can't do that, it's a woman's job.".

But I am struck by the similarity between some of these alleged female management traits and their relevance to the changes we are trying to effect in the civil service here in Hong Kong. But more of this later.

First, though you would expect me to say a few words to our international visitors about Hong Kong.

I suspect that for those of you visiting Hong Kong for the first time the impression is the drama and confidence of the city that has been created on what was once described as a 'barren rock', and the huge energy, enterprise and confidence of the people who bustle through the streets in pursuit of the opportunities which Hong Kong offers.

For those returning to Hong Kong after a significant break, the most striking impression is generally the complete change in the skyline. I heard a tale of a recent US business visitor who had not been to Hong Kong for many years. Sitting in our newest tall building, the Cheung Kong Center, he commented that on his last visit he had stayed in the Hilton Hotel, which he was sure must be nearby. His hosts smiled and explained that the 70-storey building he was now sitting in had been built on the old Hilton site!

Some of you will also be interested to find out whether 'one country, two systems' - is working. The answer is a resounding yes. Of course, there have been and will be stresses and strains as we all learn how to get the best from the late Deng Xiaoping's masterly formulation of the new relationship, which guaranteed Hong Kong's way of life for 50 years. But experience in the last two years demonstrates loud and clear that when stresses do arise both the Mainland Authorities and the Special Administrative Region Government have approached the issues with goodwill and a shared commitment to finding solutions.

We therefore have much to be grateful for in Hong Kong, but no room for complacency. Continued success is no birthright - we have to continue to work hard and respond quickly. Although the SAR Government will maintain its policy of 'positive non-intervention', Government and the civil service have a vital role to play. We must have a civil service that is motivated, modern and able to meet the community's expectations.

Of course, the civil service has had its fair share of problems over the past two years. We have attracted critical comments from politicians, the media and the public generally for our handling of certain events. The gist of the criticism is usually that we are not up to the new challenges, which is a view I strongly dispute.

Some of the criticism may simply be because people are unhappy in these difficult times and want someone to blame, some overlook the significant improvements taking place, particularly in service delivery, but equally some of it is fair.

The scale of the challenges we now face has brought broader public sector reform right to the top of the political agenda. This brings both problems and opportunities. Problems in managing expectations given the scope and magnitude of the change required. Opportunities to harness this new political will and take some bold initiatives to achieving our vision of becoming a truly world-class civil service, one that embraces excellent customer service, manages for results by results and achieves world-class productivity.

It's here that I come back to the question of management style, the so-called feminine skills.

Like other organisations, we in the civil service need flexible managers who can move away from reliance on traditional structure and hierarchy. Managers who build teamwork and shared goals. We need good communicators who motivate people by persuasion rather than by seniority and orders. We need people who focus on good customer service.

These virtues are needed to replace risk averse culture and practices, mechanisms that control rather than liberate and attitudes that see customers as an imposition rather than an opportunity to serve.

Some time ago we recognised the need to strike a better balance between our cultural, service and performance values and launched a reform programme under the banner of 'Serving the Community'.

Our aim of serving the community includes fostering stability and prosperity, improving the quality of life, caring for those in need, protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual, maintaining the rule of law and encouraging people to participate in their own affairs.

These aims are, of course, simply stated but far from easy to achieve. There are many reasons for this. First, our community's needs are diverse. They include housing, education, health care, justice, sanitation and many more. Secondly, our community comprises individuals, whose personal circumstances can easily get lost within programmes designed to meet Hong Kong's overall requirements. Thirdly, expectations are constantly changing and rising. Civil servants have to respond to these expectations, keeping pace internally with the pace of external change.

We have used these aims therefore to develop a framework of values and management principles which we have communicated widely to provide practical guidance for civil servants. This has helped to bring to life the importance of serving the community, and drawn together the efforts of all civil servants.

Our values promote fairness, integrity, responsiveness and courtesy. We stress that at all times civil servants must seek to balance the interest of the broader community, those in need, the employed, the unemployed and the business sector. And that our advice must always be impartial and apolitical, drawing on experience of what is practical. These are the basic ethics we are seeking to filter right through our system and we are only too aware that such qualities take a long time to build up but can disappear very quickly.

For me, maintaining ethical standards is vital to the public sector, it is the bed rock. I recall Professor Hennessy of the London School of Economics once saying how struck he was that when former Soviet satellites began to send their people to London, what they sought most of all was advice on how to create clean, decent and politically neutral public services out of the wreckages of the old party apparatuses. They were of course also interested in new public management processes and techniques but the old enduring values were what intrigued them most and seems to be the pearls-beyond-price which they were seeking.

I also believe that our civil service emphasis on advancement on merit has given women the opportunity to come through to take a major role in the leadership of the civil service.

Our management principles are also simply stated but equally demanding. We defined four guiding principles to give a clear and balanced direction to management tasks across the Government and so provide the momentum for continuous improvement - Being Accountable; Living within Our Means; Developing Our Culture of Service; and Managing for Performance.

Looking back, these principles have certainly helped focus our efforts. There can be no doubt, for instance, that as a government we are now much more open and accountable than we have ever been. We are held aggressively accountable to independent monitoring bodies such as the Legislative Council, (where I can assure you the feminine touch is not the softer touch) District Boards and The Ombudsman, or woman as she is now. We make a plethora of information available including policy objectives, performance pledges, departmental estimates and annual reports; and information on Government's decisions and actions is a right under the provision of our Code on Access to Information.

The principle of 'Living within Our Means' has confirmed its merits during the recent economic crisis. Keeping spending in line with our GDP growth has enabled us to build up the reserves that are helping us cope with current rainy days. However, as I will mention in a moment, there is still room for significant improvement on productivity.

Our 'Culture of Service' requires us to be every bit as passionate about customer service as the private sector - perhaps even more so because our customers often have nowhere else to go. It hasn't always been this way. I recall the story of a department, on being told their customers were looking for services to be available, during the lunch break, replied "We don't understand the problem. There is a big notice on the door stating when we are closed - what more do they want?"

Not surprisingly, we are now listening much more to our customers and there are many visible examples around town of better service environments and considerable improvements in process times and the range of services available. It is particularly pleasing to us to hear of disciplined service departments like the Police, being respected as a good service organisation - as well as for their excellent crime fighting and prevention skills.

Looking forward, new technology offers opportunities for us to further improve and transform the way we deliver services, moving away from over the counter services to the use of electronic service delivery, one-stop shop, call centres and the like. This too challenges the traditional civil service culture that emphasises departmental and staff demarcation. We need to take the lead in demonstrating the effectiveness of new models.

So far so good, but we have also recognised that there are limits to the improvements we can achieve through these initiatives focused on internal control and external customer relationships. We must also change the way in which we manage performance and resources across the Government as a whole. For too long, perhaps, our efforts have focused on controlling inputs rather than delivering outputs and outcomes.

In his first Policy Address, our Chief Executive committed Government to 'Managing for Results by Results'. We have since published policy objectives setting out what we are aiming to achieve for the community and how we will measure success.

I hope this programme of change I have outlined this evening persuades you that the civil service is well up to the challenges ahead and is taking a balanced and pragmatic approach to meeting them head on. There are, I believe, parallels between Hong Kong's efforts to achieve a cultural shift from a colonial style administration to a modern civil service and Zonta's on-going efforts to promote the interests of women.

Both involve a struggle for hearts and minds, and require strong doses of courage, vision, leadership and persistence. We also both know that it is always easier to sit on the sidelines and criticise than to wade in and take responsibility for improving matters. Many of the successes will attract little publicity, and certainly not as much as we get for our mistakes. So I am very grateful to have the opportunity this evening to put across this side of the story tonight.

Ladies and gentlemen, in less than 60 days, we will enter a new millennium. For women, I believe that the 21st Century will bring even more opportunities for experimenting, for self discovery, for developing new leadership styles that will enable and empower women to play their part in addressing the concerns of our time - whether it is health, education, environment, or other social, political or economic issues. Barbara Franklin, who was the US Secretary of Commerce in the Bush administration was in town recently to address a conference jointly sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce, and the International Women's Forum. She spoke on "Women as Leaders - Leadership Styles and Opportunities for the New Millennium". In her view "We can be proud of our heritage as women and look forward to what awaits us." I agree with her entirely. I'm sure she would not mind if I end my speech tonight by borrowing an anonymous quotation she used in her speech, because it so aptly describes how I feel as a woman leader, even though the original author may well have been a man. And I dare say it probably reflects the feelings of many of you present here tonight. So I would now read you this quotation. It reads as follows: "It is my right to be uncommon if I can. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build; to fail and to succeed. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid; to think and to act for myself; to enjoy the benefits of my creation and to face the world and say, this is who I am and this is what I have done."

Thank you very much.

End/Friday, November 5, 1999

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