108. Another area of fruitful co-operation during the year lay in the preparations for representation of Hong Kong at the 13th Inter- national Conference of Social Work, which, preceded by the Congress of Schools of Social Work, was held in Washington in September 1966. A strong delegation including experienced personnel from the Council, the Social Welfare Department, Medical and Health Department, voluntary agencies and the Universities, attended the conference and made a useful contribution to it; but even more important was the hard work that preceded the conference in the joint hammering out of a national paper which, as it turned out, attracted favourable comment by one prominent speaker at the conference.
109. 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 2. During the year the committee offered its advice to the government on a number of questions of policy; considered applica- tions for subvention from fifty-two voluntary organizations and recom- mended allocations totalling nearly eight million dollars for 1967-68 (in 1958-59 the allocations were under $2.4 millions); and considered nineteen applications for permission to hold flag days and advised which should be granted.
110. The Social Welfare Advisory Committee also advises Govern- ment on how the money raised from the Government lotteries should be spent. In the past year, allocations amounting to $1,763,905 were approved. In all $8,690,105 has now been approved for issue from the Lotteries Fund since October 1965, particulars are given at Appendix 23. The grant of $1 million to the Hong Kong Council of Social Service for a social research project to study present day Chinese urban family life is worthy of note because for years lack of research, lack of facts, lack of elementary knowledge, have been the complaint of all social workers in Hong Kong. Dr Robert MITCHELL was appointed Director of this important project and began work in the summer of 1966. It is under the joint auspices of the department and the council and is supervised by a committee of academic and leading citizens (see Appendix 2). It is expected that it will be late 1968 or early 1969 before the results of this research are known.
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