CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
THIS Report is primarily devoted to describing the work of Government in the field of Social Welfare in the course of the financial year which ended on the 31st March, 1958.
2. During the previous ten years, the instrument for this work was the Social Welfare Office, operating as a Sub-department of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. Legal powers in connexion with the protection of juveniles, guardianship, adoption and so on were vested in the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, in whose name the administrative functions of the office were discharged. In practice the Social Welfare Officer had exercised these responsibilities himself as an Assistant to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs since the establishment of his Office in 1948, subject to general control by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, which became progressively more formal. The seal was set upon this natural development on 1st January, 1958, when the Department of Social Welfare was established as an independent unit within the Government structure. Legal powers of guardianship, etc. were trans- ferred simultaneously to the Director of Social Welfare who became accountable direct to the Colonial Secretary and through him to the Governor; at the same time, general liaison between Government and the Kaifong Welfare Associations, Women's Welfare Clubs and other bodies with district or clan allegiance became the direct responsibility of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, to whom the staff of the former Community Development Section of the Social Welfare Office was transferred. The change in the title and status of the Department gave formal expression to a state of affairs which had existed for some time and had little effect upon the day-to-day conduct of departmental business.
3. The reader of this Report will notice that frequent reference is made to the activities of one or other of the great variety of voluntary welfare organizations or institutions which operate in Hong Kong; the reason why these bodies figure so prominently in a departmental report is that their work is interwoven with that of the Department so closely that any informative and realistic outline of Government social welfare work must introduce their contribution to the whole at many points.
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