family difficulties and personal upsets, followed when necessary, and when official resources are limited or inappropriate, by reference to the specialized voluntary agency which can best meet the needs so disclosed.
68. Expenditure on non-emergency relief increased for the first time in 3 years and stood at $1,439,919 on 31st March 1967 largely because of May 1965. This is still lower than the $1,600,000 provided in the Estimates. Expenditure on relief is strictly controlled by the employ- ment of intensive casework, aimed at rehabilitating and restoring people in want as rapidly as the circumstances permit to full, or at least partial, economic independence. Nevertheless, the average daily number of dry rations issued increased from two thousand seven hundred and twenty in 1965-66 to three thousand four hundred and seventy-six last year; the average daily issue of cooked meals, however, dropped from nine hundred and twenty-one to seven hundred and sixty-six.
69. The responsibility of officers of the Relief Section remains a heavy one in that it is only through intensive casework and frequent home visits and interviews that the needy can overcome their difficul- ties and assume control over their livelihood. The help given ranges from the securing of employment to rehabilitation and vocational training, from referrals for medical attention to compassionate resettle- ment. The details may be seen in Appendix 18. During the year recom- mendations were made for the payment in certain instances of cash assistance, instead of the issue of dry rations or cooked meals, and for further modification of the criteria of those qualifying for relief. Certain changes will be introduced early in the next financial year.
70. The Relief Section maintains seven welfare centres and two large kitchens, through which the staff bring a casework service to the poor and provide relief feeding. These centres are at Yau Ma Tei, Sham Shui Po and Wong Tai Sin in Kowloon; at Happy Valley, Hospital Road (Sai Ying Pun) and Chai Wan on Hong Kong Island; and at Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. The two kitchens, one at Happy Valley and the other at Hung Hom, are capable of producing cooked food in great quantity at short notice, and can jointly provide 110,000 meals a day, to meet a large-scale natural disaster.
71. While public assistance for the destitute as such is an accepted responsibility of the government a number of voluntary agencies pro- vide foodstuffs on a considerable, but generally diminishing, scale. Chief among these agencies are Catholic Relief Services, Church World Service, the Co-operative for American Relief Everywhere, Inc.,
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