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meanwhile risen above the prescribed limit.
This is
very disappointing, but we have to determine income
criteria and stand by them in order that those in
greatest need receive first attention, until it is
possible to extend or vary the priorities.
4.
Raising
the income limit increases the number of applicants
and means that people inside the limit have to wait
longer while people with higher incomes are, as it were,
brought back into the queue. The Housing Authority
regularly reviews the income limits and since 1963
the income maximum has increased at a much faster rate
than for example the consumer price index and the index
of industrial wages. As a result, the number of eligible
households rose from 89,000 in 1973 to 223,000 in 1976.
In the context of staffing in the Civil Service,
Mr. Wong Lam had heard "in the past only one Housing
Manager was put in charge of one whole estate. But
today the same estate is under the management of several
Housing Managers and many more Assistant Housing Managers".
I have written at some length to my honourable friend
on the particular point. On the general aspect, the
Housing Authority believes that staff should be kept to
the minimum and deployed efficiently. As the judge in
"Trial by Jury" put it: "a nice dilemma we have here".
The Authority in 1973 took over the estates previousl;
administered by the Resettlement Department, and the scope
and standard of management had to be improved. This
required, inevitably, increases in staff. I assure my
honourable friend, however, that the Authority keeps a
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