from the Finance and the Health and Welfare branches of the Government Secretariat, and the Social Welfare, Housing and Building Development departments with the following terms of reference:
"To review and to make recommendations for improvements in the procedures relating to applications from voluntary organizations or Government departments for grants from the Lotteries Fund, especially for premises set aside in public housing estates for social welfare purposes.
"
92. The Working Group concluded in June 1984 that much of the delay in processing fitting-out works was attributable to:
-protracted discussions between the voluntary organizations and the Social Welfare Department concerning the
schedule of accommodation, layout and finishes, and furniture and equipment; and
-the voluntary organizations' inability to manage tendering procedures.
93. The Working Group recommended the introduction of the following procedures to ensure that the work was carried out expeditiously:
--standard schedules of accommodation, standard layouts, standard finishes and standard costs for furniture and equipment for various social welfare services in housing estates should be established and agreed with the voluntary organizations;
-for services within housing estates yet to be constructed, a turnkey system should be instituted with the Housing Authority's main contractor doing as much of the work as possible. The voluntary organizations would be permitted to make certain changes to the layout and fitting out of the premises within the established standards but if these would result in additional costs, the excess costs would be met by the voluntary organizations. The cost of fitting out would be paid from the Lotteries Fund direct to the Housing Authority; and
-for already constructed estates and estates under construction, use should be made as far as possible of the
Housing Authority's term maintenance contractors to carry out fitting-out work.
94. In implementing its recommendations on standards, the Working Group agreed that priority should be given to establishing standards for the "core" services, namely children and youth centres, nurseries, social centres for the elderly and hostels for the elderly and a committee has been meeting since July 1984 to establish standards for these services. Unfortunately progress has been slow, mainly because it has proved to be a time-consuming task to establish appropriate standards for each service which can be adapted to the different design blocks in housing estates, and to secure agreement to those standards from the voluntary organizations. In April 1985, standards had been agreed for the "core" services in two types of design block and work was in hand to draw up standards for the "core" services in the remaining types of design block. Thereafter standards will be established for other services as far as this is practicable.
95. In implementing its recommendation that all fitting-out projects in new housing estates should be entrusted to the Housing Authority's main contractor, the Director of Social Welfare is in the process of drawing up a three year rolling programme. The programme will be submitted on an annual basis to the Subventions and Lotteries Fund Advisory Committee and then to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council to approve a block commitment. Individual project estimates within the block commitment will be based upon a rough indication of cost derived from the agreed standards and will be adjusted as necessary once the relevant building contract is let.
In implementing its recommendation that fitting-out projects in already constructed housing estates and estates under construction should be entrusted to the Housing Authority's term maintenance contractors, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in August 1985 approved the granting of $14 million from the Lotteries Fund for the introduction of a pilot scheme for 25 fitting-out projects where standards had been agreed.
97. The effectiveness of the Government's transport policy for reducing traffic congestion. Because of Hong Kong's small area, high population and mountainous topography restrictions have to be placed on the limited road space which has one of the highest densities of vehicles in the world. Accordingly, the Government's policy is to give priority to public transport over motorcars, motor cycles and taxis so that traffic congestion can be kept within acceptable levels. In pursuit of this policy some interesting and imaginative proposals were submitted in March 1985 in the Government's Electronic Road Pricing Pilot-Stage Report which came to the general conclusion that there were two alternatives that could be adopted to achieve a comprehensive reduction in the number of private cars using the roads across the urban area. The first alternative was the current policy of increasing taxes on vehicle ownership, a policy that has been shown to work because measures introduced in 1982 had resulted in a 25% reduction in the number of licensed cars and a 10% fall in the use of cars on the roads. However, in order to contend with future congestion the report pointed out that it would be necessary, under current ownership control measures, to restrain the number of vehicles on the roads to 200 000 by 1991 and at the same time to increase the average annual licence fee to as much as $10,000. The second, and what the report considered to be the only other alternative that would work, was a comprehensive system of direct road pricing. Under this alternative the level of congestion would be lower, the community benefit would be greater and the number of licensed cars could be increased to 275 000 by 1991 without any further increase in the annual licence fees. The pilot stage of the Electronic Road Pricing Scheme has cost $37 million and it remains to be decided whether to spend another $240 million on implementing the full scheme. After the issue of the Pilot-Stage Report I carried out a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the Government's transport policy for reducing traffic
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