CHAPTER I
THE WAY AHEAD
An important milestone was reached in October 1972 when a draft White Paper was published, entitled "Social Welfare in Hong Kong: The Way Ahead'. This draft White Paper and a Five Year Plan for Social Welfare Development (to be published at the same time as the final version of the White Paper) took stock of advances in social welfare in the past ten years and embodied a comprehensive scheme for the orderly expansion of social welfare services to meet the needs of the community as a whole.
2. The draft White Paper and the Five Year Plan were the joint work of the Department, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and voluntary agencies, and represented a consensus of opinion achieved in partnership between the Department and the voluntary sector in how social welfare services should develop in the 1970s. In order to give the entire community an opportunity to comment on the policies proposed in the White Paper, it was published in draft form, and with the help of the Secretariat for Home affairs, the New Terri- tories Administration, the Education Department, and the Government Information Services, views were gathered from people representative of a wide cross-section of the community. As a result, a number of amendments were made to the White Paper. This approach of involv- ing the community in the discussion of social welfare policies resulted in a better White Paper.
3. The White Paper contained comprehensive proposals covering a balanced social security system suited to Hong Kong's needs, exten- sion of facilities for community development so that they are available to the whole population, improvement to family welfare services so that assistance is readily available to any family in need of help, pro- vision of adequate facilities for the rehabilitation of the disabled, provision of special services for the elderly to enable them to remain as independent members of the community for as long as possible, provision of adequate facilities for the rehabilitation of those under probational and correctional care, and the provision of fully effective
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