The Quest for Joined-up Government: Structural Relationships and the Problem of Silos in Hong Kong

Joined-up government, defined as a means of attaining more effective horizontally andvertically coordinated policy formulation and implementation, is a prominent publicsector reform objective in many countries. Its antithesis, "government by silos", on whichthe reform effort has largely been concentrated, depicts a situation wherehierarchically-organized departments operate in isolation from one another. Governmentby silos may result in serious bureaucratic dysfunctions such as delays in decision-making,duplication of resources, poor service delivery, failure to resolve cross-cutting"wicked problems" and difficulties in collaboration with non-governmental actors.Under colonial rule, the Hong Kong government was based on silos-type departmentswhich facilitated bureaucratic control, efficiency and technical specialization. However,expanded social policy outputs subsequently required greater horizontal coordinationand, in 2000, joined-up government became an explicit reform objective. Progress hasnevertheless been slow. Departments have resisted calls for more coordination and silosremain the predominant organizational form.Our research aims to identify the fault lines in efforts to improve coordination, toanalyse how and why they have occurred, and to explore the ways to overcome them. Weconceptualize the failure to "join up" as a problem embedded in the bureaucraticstructure in three domains: inward coordination between government departments;downward coordination between different levels within departments; and outwardcoordination with non-governmental actors. Within this framework, we develop ourcentral research questions: What causes the silos problem? How is the problemmanifested in the government structure? What consequences does it have for servicedelivery and the functions of government? Does a silos-type structure adversely affectcollaborative governance between government and non-governmental organizations?Why is coordination effective in some cases but not in others? How can we dealeffectively with the problem of silos?To address these questions, we will collect and analyse Legislative Council, budget,ombudsman and audit documents over the years 2000-2015. The aim is to identifyprogrammes requiring coordination between departments and the problems or successesthat have subsequently resulted. In each domain, we will conduct case studies andinterview key government officials, Legislative Councillors and other relevant publicsector personnel.This research will make two important contributions. Theoretically, it addresses keypublic administration issues such as organizational coordination, service delivery andcollaborative governance. Practically, research on government coordination is longoverdue and should help in devising more effective solutions to the enduring problem ofsilos for Hong Kong and other regions.