4.7
7
course from four to three years was not pursued in the
White Paper.
W
The publication of a white paper (which is first approved by
the Governor in Council and then tabled in the Legislative Council) is
an indication of the government's intentions in a particular policy
area, with public opinion taken into account. The Finance Committee
of the Legislative Committee takes note of the financial implications
in terms of broad policy targets that is the order of costs of the
proposals as a whole is noted but detailed justification is required
thereafter for each proposal or group of related proposals. Implementation
of complex white paper proposals may take several years to achieve, during
which time some of the proposals are likely to become overtaken by events,
and others affected by changes in the relative priorities of government
policy targets as a whole.
4.8
In this connection, the 1978 White Paper drew attention to the
high financial cost of implementing the proposed measures, pointing out
that the timing of their fulfilment would be subject to a regular review
of the overall resources available to the government and of the share of
them which properly could be made available for senior secondary and
tertiary education. A statement of this type is a necessary proviso as
budgetary conditions can affect the timetable for achievement of policy
objectives. Some proposals in the 1974 White Paper, for example, had
to be extensively modified for financial reasons - in particular, the
proposed school building programme was slowed down and the shortfall of
places resulting both from this and from the decision taken administratively
to abolish the SSEE one year earlier than originally planned was partially
met by increasing the number of bought places in private schools. The
fate of white paper proposals depends to a large extent on the government's
Development Plan and the closely related Five-Year Forecast of Revenue
and Expenditure: these are described briefly in the following paragraphs.