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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
all kinds operating in the welfare field, also engage in most other forms of social work, except for matters in which the Director has statutory duties, such as adoption, the care and protection of females below 21 and probation work. There is very close liaison between these bodies and the Department and a great number of them receive financial support by way of subvention. The Govern- ment thus relies upon voluntary effort to meet in large measure many of the most pressing needs, such as relief feeding, homes for orphans, the handicapped and the aged, clubs and libraries for children and so on.
The Hong Kong Council of Social Service is a federation of over forty of the more important voluntary bodies; it co-ordinates their work-for instance through its Central Relief Records Office which exists to prevent overlapping-acts as a clearing house for fresh ideas and projects, and promotes the formation of new organizations charged with resolving the social problems of the moment as they arise. Thus in the past the Council has fathered the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society and the Hong Kong Housing Society; in 1958 it sponsored the new Society for Reha- bilitation, which intends to establish centres where the physically handicapped can be trained for employment. The Council has also been studying the questions of indebtedness and small savings. During the year a social survey of Resettlement Estates was undertaken by the University of Hong Kong in conjunction with the Council and the Department, and with Government financial support. The statistical analysis of this survey was still in progress at the end of the year. Another concern of the Council is the provision of an outlet for the products of refugee craftsmen as well as of persons in the care of various welfare agencies, through its 'Welfare Handicrafts' shop situated in a busy locality in Kowloon.
As briefly mentioned in Chapter 25, the Social Welfare Depart- ment became independent of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs at the beginning of the year, when the latter retained the staff of the former Community Development Section, now renamed Chinese Liaison Officers. The Department now has six specialist Sections, concerned with child welfare, group work for youth, moral welfare, probation, the care of the handicapped, and public assistance. The year's work, both voluntary and official, may