CONFIDENTIAL
B
XCC(71)20
(b)
(c)
(d)
6
New licensing duties: as requested in its 1969 Report, the Urban Council should be made the authority for certain additional licensing functions which are envir- onmental in character, i, e. liquor licensing (but the Police should retain authority to give temporary extensions of licensing hours); cinemas (Police to retain authority to license live shows); bowling alleys; skating rinks; billiard saloons; barber's shops; table tennis saloons. The Council wishes also to be the licensing authority for dance halls, mahjong shops, moneylenders and pawnbrokers but the criminal and vice aspects of these operations make it necessary to leave their licensing in the hands of the Police.
Additional powers sought by the Council: the Urban Council's March 1969 Report proposed that, in addi- tion to keeping its present functions, it should take over various new functions, including control of all public housing, new licensing duties, street lighting, control of Government schools and later a wider (unspecified) range of duties in the field of education; management of the Social Welfare Department, car- park policy and planning (in addition to its present management duties); health education; (eventually) town planning; and weights and measures. These are spelt out in detail in Annex B which summarises the contents of the Urban Council's 1969 Report and suggests how each proposal should be dealt with. This summary explains the reasons why the new powers sought should not be given to the Urban Council; briefly, these may be stated as follows:
(ii)
(i) the existence of satisfactory arrangements
for providing these services, backed up in most cases by competent advisory committees; the political and fiscal dangers of vesting authority in educational (and perhaps even social welfare) matters in an elective body such as the Urban Council;
(iv)
(iii) the fact that the Council's present duties are
so onerous that any extension of them is un- likely to produce a better service; the desirability of providing many of the services in question on a Colony-wide basis, rather than fragment them under different authorities in the urban areas and the New Territories,
Comprehensive statement of Urban Council functions: a comprehensive list of the Urban Council's responsibi- lities should (for the first time) be included in the appro- priate legislation, for ease of reference and amendment.
CONFIDENTIAL
f