to positive co-ordination of voluntary welfare work in each of its principal fields, as well as close collaboration with the Department. The Council's mark on the Hong Kong welfare record is likely soon to be increasingly strong and distinct.
94. The Social Welfare Advisory Committee, which is appointed by the Governor, provides the Government with the considered opinions of prominent citizens, many of whom are active in voluntary agencies; all its members, except the Chairman, are private persons who serve in an individual capacity. Its terms of reference and membership are set out in Appendix 5. During the year the Committee offered its advice to the Government on the Statement of Aims and Policy for Social Welfare (see paragraph 3) and on a number of other questions of policy, including the disposal of the proceeds of the Lotteries, which the Financial Secretary indicated, in his budget speech in February, would be funded in the near future. The Advisory Committee also considered applications for subvention from forty-four voluntary organizations and recommended allocations totalling nearly six and a quarter million dollars for 1965–66 (in 1958-59 the allocations were under $2.4 millions); in addition it considered twenty-two applications for permission to hold flag days and advised the Government which of these should be granted.
95. The Hong Kong Social Workers' Association had another active and productive year and programmes of various kinds, such as study groups and film-shows of interest to social workers, were arranged. The Association continued its efforts to interpret and popularize social work as a career by organizing a series of career talks to senior students in some sixty secondary schools. The Association recognizes that it has an important role to play in helping to raise standards of social work practice and has plans to intensify its efforts in this direction during the coming year.
96. Some of the most encouraging evidence of the willingness and ability of the Government and the voluntary agencies to work closely together in the interests of effective service lies in the response of the latter to the social work training programme which is reported in Chapter X. Their willingness to provide facilities for the field work training of social work students at the Universities and to participate fully in the in-service training courses, not only at the planning stage but also through- out the courses themselves, has been a very real demonstration of con- certed effort. Quite apart from the direct results in the form of better trained staff, it may reasonably be claimed that the increasingly trusting
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