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Following is a question by the Hon Paul Tse Wai-chun and a written reply by the Acting Secretary for Home Affairs, Ms Florence Hui, in the Legislative Council today (May 21):
Question:
The Chief Executive (CE) and some principal officials, such as the Financial Secretary (FS) and the Secretary for Development (SDEV), have been using blogs to make comments from time to time in recent years. For instance, FS posted a blog entry entitled "Turn back and you are ashore" on the 11th of this month, commenting that the "filibustering" at meetings of this Council by some Members during the scrutiny of the Appropriation Bill (the Bill) had affected various public services and the daily lives of the people. FS further pointed out that since the Government would defer its allocation of funds for June to public organisations should the Bill not be passed on schedule, the Hospital Authority (HA) had invested its liquid capital in shorter-term bank deposits in order to avoid its daily operation being affected by the delay in funding allocation. It was estimated that the interest foregone by HA would be around $1 million and this would be the first instance of actual loss of public funds caused by the "filibusters" this year. On the other hand, it is noted that a Member of this Council criticised earlier on that a number of principal officials were only good at writing blog posts behind closed doors like "otakus" and refused to give an account of the Government's views openly in person. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the role of the blogs of CE and the principal officials in policy implementation by the Government; whether the blogs are used as official channels through which the Government announces its policies and relevant policy amendments as well as disseminates its information to the public;
(2) whether CE, FS and SDEV have communicated with one another to achieve a uniform stance before posting their respective blog entries each time; if they have, of the communication procedure; if not, the reasons for that;
(3) whether comments made by the principal officials in their blogs represent the stance of the Government;
(4) whether it has studied if it is more appropriate to deliver the aforesaid blog comments at a press conference or in a press release instead of publishing them as a blog post, having regard to the fact that most members of the public do not have the habit of browsing web sites and blog posts every day; if it has, of the results of its study; if not, whether it will conduct such a study;
(5) whether CE and the principal officials have adopted uniform criteria in determining the circumstances under which blogs, instead of the Government's prevailing channels, are to be used to disseminate information to the public; and
(6) of the respective numbers of staff members in the Office of CE and the offices of the principal officials who are responsible for blog-related duties (including information collation, writing and posting blog entries), as well as the manpower and resources earmarked for such duties in 2014-2015?
Reply:
President,
The issues in question are related to the arrangements for information dissemination by the principal officials of various bureaux and departments with the assistance of the Information Services Department (ISD). The following reply is consolidated by the Home Affairs Bureau:
(1) In its pursuit of "people-based" governance, the Government formulates various policy initiatives with the aim that they can be understood, supported and monitored by the public to better respond to the needs of the community. To this end, the Government, in adhering to the principle of openness and transparency, disseminates its messages to the general public through various media and channels including blogs. The ISD is mainly responsible for assisting departments in their publicity and news work by providing them with information dissemination platforms. The Chief Executive and the principal officials will decide on the contents of information to be disseminated through their blogs as necessary.
(2) Principal officials' offices and other officers involved in information dissemination maintain communication with relevant colleagues in other departments as deemed necessary in their daily work.
(3) Blogging is one of the many means of information dissemination. It also serves as one of the information platforms for principal officials' to communicate with the public.
(4) To promote and tie in with the wider use of information technology in the community, the Government makes use of the Internet for strengthening communication, such as uploading of press releases, press photos and news clips of the Government to the GovHK one-stop portal for public access and browsing around the clock, live broadcasting of the whole course of major press conferences on Government websites, and setting up of webcasting archives for the browsing of the press conferences and other news clips. Blogging is also one of the communication channels via the Internet. The links to the blogs of principal officials are also available on the Social Media webpage (www.gov.hk/en/about/govdirectory/socialmedia.htm) in the GovHK one-stop portal for public and media access.
(5) There are different channels for Government's information dissemination and communication, including press releases, webpages, social media such as blogs, press conferences, briefings, speeches at public events or meetings, publications and government gazettes, etc. Departments may decide on the channels for information dissemination and communication as they deem most appropriate, taking into account the nature of the information and the actual circumstances.
(6) Assistance provided for publishing blogs is also a kind of work related to information dissemination. Resources in this respect are reflected in the overall expenditures of the departments concerned.
Ends/Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Issued at HKT 11:08
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