CONFIDENTIAL
Inspectors should have the expertise and background necessary to command the confidence and respect of employers at a time when industry will have a growing technological content.
TRAINING
16. The expansion of the Labour and Factories Inspectorates will generate a training need. My predecessor made arrangements in 1974 for 8 training places to be reserved each year on the course for Overseas Labour Department officials which is organised by the UK Department of Employment. I suggest that at least two Hong Kong Assistant Labour Officers should attend each of the three courses which are arranged annually. The course organised by Aston University might also assist in the training of members of the Factory Inspector- ate. The Labour Commissioner will be considering whether courses in the United Kingdom would assist in the training of Senior Labour Inspectors or Labour Inspectors and of officers in the Industrial Training Branch.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION
17.
Hong Kong's Workmen's Compensation Ordinance, first enacted in 1953, is based on the principle of employers' liability. The latest amendment enacted in December 1977 requires employers 'to meet the fees charged for medical attention and has enabled an improved declaration to be made in respect of the extent to which International Labour Convention No.17, Workmen's Compensation (Accidents) is applied in Hong Kong. The Ordinance is currently the subject of a comprehensive review to assess, in particular, whether it provides adequate compensation for loss of earning capacity as distinct from compensation for physical incapacity. Information is being sought as to UK practice on this distinction,
18. Further amendments to the Ordinance are contemplated. The first would require an employer to pay for the cost of repairing or replacing a prosthesis or surgical appliance provided for an injured workman. Proposals submitted to the Executive Council in December 1977 were on the basis that the employer should pay for the initial cost of the applicance and should contribute to a common pool a sum assessed as the cost of repairs and replacements over the next 10 years. I under- stand the Council believed this scheme to be too complicated and its administrative burden too high for an estimated expenditure on repairs and replacements of only about HK$ 50,000 a year. The Labour Department is now thinking of alternative proposals which would afford the same relief to the incapacitated workmen; but in the meantime the Hong Kong Government is bearing the costs. This last undertaking on the part of Government raises the point of whether an additional improved declaration could now be made in respect of International Labour Convention No.17 (para. 17 above) and this possibility will be examined in my office.
6
CONFIDENTIAL
/19 The second