Coordinating government silos: challenges and opportunities

The literature on silos in government often focuses on their failure to engage effectively in horizontal coordination. While this is often true, silos-dominant administrative systems may still find ways to overcome or prevent incoherence in government. The problem is not so much with the structure of silos but with the lack of effective coordination mechanisms between them. Therefore, it is important to identify what mechanisms may enable silos to work successfully with each other and under what conditions, so that there will be no need to pursue a total breakdown of silos, which can be politically and administratively costly. Using Hong Kong examples, we distinguish three different types of coordination and examine their effects on silos: informal or semi-formal coordination where administrative elites and professionals use quid pro quos to overcome coordination problems; formal coordination where political expectations, directions and monitoring may mitigate problems; and remedial policy-making where failure is addressed. The Hong Kong case reveals that effective changes may be made by strengthening existing coordinating mechanisms and extending them to the implementation level in a silos-dominant system. Radical reforms may improve coordination but they run the risk of political instability and service disruption.