HKMagazine_974

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First Person
Stephen Fisher, the former director of the Social Welfare Department, was a civil servant
for three decades until he retired in 2009. Unlike many of his former colleagues, Fisher enjoys
a reputation as an official who truly cares about the community. Last year, he came out of
retirement to take up the position of director general at Oxfam Hong Kong. He discusses social
justice with Grace Tsoi.
46 HK MAGAZINE FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2013
My [British] great-grandfather was
a civil servant at the Sanitation Board
[the predecessor of the Food and
Environmental Hygiene Department]
when he came to Hong Kong in the 1890s.
There were only four senior sanitation
inspectors in the city at that time: Hong
Kong East, Hong Kong West, Kowloon East
and Kowloon West. When he arrived, the
New Territories had not been leased to the
Brits yet. He was the inspector of Hong
Kong West.
According to documents that we dug
out, it seems that my great-grandfather
had some flair for languages. He claimed to
speak Cantonese and the Hakka language.
My grandfather was born in Hong Kong and
married a local Chinese woman. My mother
was also a local Chinese.
The public and the government have
different ways of assessing civil servants.
You have a choice to be either the people’s
servant or the officials’ servant.
I did not consider leaving the
government in the last years because
I had to think in terms of my pension
[chuckles]. I survived the system—
I worked in the government for 30 years.
I was not at the very top, but I was
promoted six, seven times. But do the
people at the very top recognize me as
one of them? The answer is no.
Most civil servants do not quite agree
with the things their seniors ask them to do.
It’s a fact of life.
XKCD
RANDALL MUNROE
You have
a choice to be either
the people’s servant
or the officials’
servant.
A lot of people say that we need
professionals in the government. I don’t
think it really works that way.
Most of us are like salesmen—it doesn’t
matter if it’s a policy or a bar of soap. A
technical expert may not have selling skills,
so I think there is no problem with the
rotation system [administrative officers in the
Hong Kong government that are picked to
be promoted to senior positions are rotated
through various government departments,
regardless of their background].
The rules of the government are very
clear. But the problem is whether you want
to play by those rules. If you follow, your
colleagues and seniors will treat you well,
and you will be promoted to a certain post—
say, permanent secretary.
The rules include keeping quiet and
cooperating with other government
departments. If you always challenge the
rules, there will be problems.
After joining Oxfam, I learnt a few
words such as “core values.” When I was
interviewing for the job, the staff there joined
in on two sessions. They had a say in who
was going to be their director general. This
would not happen anywhere else.
I have been appointed to the
Commission on Poverty. It’s rather
interesting, because I was the secretary
to the previous commission and now I am
sitting on the other side. Are they afraid
of me? They [government officials] cannot
assume that their use of technical jargon
will scare non-professional members. I know
exactly where the terms come from and
what they are thinking.
In my opinion, statistical indicators
such as Gini coefficient have to be measured
over time, and Hong Kong’s Gini coefficient
has been on the rise in the past ten years.
In the past decade, the income
for management positions has been
continuously increasing. But for the bottom
ten percent, their income has not risen.
In fact, some even have a smaller
income. The income inequality has been
aggravated, no matter how you measure it.
If you believe in “big market, small
government,” the market will inevitably
take over some of the government’s
functions. If the market has too much
influence, the government cannot allow it
to fail because it is too big. For example
in the United States and the United
Kingdom, the governments cannot allow
the collapse of banks. Therefore, these
institutions have disproportionate influence
on the government.
In Hong Kong, we have a new term
[to describe the situation]: property
hegemony. Even though the government
wants to regulate the property market,
it is too difficult. The developers are not
only powerful in Hong Kong, they are also
powerful in Beijing. Flats are ridiculously
expensive in Hong Kong but there’s nothing
you can do.
The business sector keeps saying that
the government does not need to do
anything, and problems will be resolved by
economic development: a bigger pie will
make a bigger slice for everyone. Let me tell
you that the slicing is not equitable. A bigger
economic pie does not always translate into
bigger slices for everyone.