Principal Officials Accountability System

In Hong Kong, the Principal Officials Accountability System (主要官員問責制) was introduced by inaugural chief executive Tung Chee Hwa in July 2002. It is a system whereby all principal officials, including the Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary, Secretary for Justice and head of government bureaux would no longer be politically neutral career civil servants. Instead, they would all be political appointees chosen by the chief executive.

Under the new system, all heads of bureaux would become ministers, members of the Executive Council, a refashioned cabinet. They would report directly to the chief executive instead of the Chief Secretary or the Financial Secretary.

POAS was portrayed as the key to solving previous administrative problems, notably the lack of co-operation of high-ranking civil servants with the chief executive. The changes were introduced by Tung at the beginning of his second term, with the hope of resolving difficulties he faced in governance.

It was expanded and superseded by the Political Appointment System in 2008.

After the transfer of sovereignty, Hong Kong inherited the colonial system that all positions in the government were filled by civil servants. The historical bureaucracy was necessitated by the nature of colonial rule. Government policies and legislations were all dominated by the bureaucracy, led by the Governor, with the executive and legislative councils, all of whose members were appointed by the Governor. A web of advisory boards and committees, served to support and supplement policies, thereby giving the system some sense of elite participation and endorsement.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law had assumed the continuity of a bureaucracy-led government to preserve continuity of the government machine. Under this system, only the Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary and Secretary for Justice were ex-officio members of the Executive Council (EXCO); Unofficial members were majority in the council. Thus principal officials during the last British administration stayed in their original portfolios. In effect, the first non-colonial administration was a coalition government with top bureaucrats headed by then Chief Secretary for Administration, Anson Chan.

Since the reversion to China, there has been an erosion of the running principles of the Executive Council (Exco) – some Exco members have violated the "collective responsibility" principles, namely being unsupportive to the decisions made by Exco. See this as the cause of many of his policy failures such as the "85,000 Housing Reform", Tung introduced POAS in 2002 to remedy the weaknesses as he perceived of the Hong Kong government.

The "short pile" scandal shows that the government and the chief executive fail to hold top civil servants, namely permanent secretary, accountable. Being the top of bureaucracy, permanent secretary no longer maintain political neutrality as they are bridging public and lower civil servants’ suggestions and giving advice to directors and executives; practically they are holding power for policy-making. Political neutrality is seen as an unwritten convention to promote impartiality within government and it is “the fundamental value for good governance” as bureaucrats are not elected, they are not meant to represent popular interest and do not capture the mandate to exert any kind of power. Yet, power is exercised and no mechanisms of accountability can hold them fully accountable as, firstly, the Legislative Council can hold answerability by inviting them into enquiry sessions, passing a motion for non-confidence does not entails dismissal nor disciplinary action as it is not stated in the Basic Law or any statute; secondly, they are not members of the Executive Council and not administratively accountable to the chief executive.