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depends? Let me make it clear that I am not suggesting that more dollars cannot and should not be provided year by year for the work that my Department and the voluntary agencies can do, but where so much stress is necessarily and rightly laid on housing, education and health and public safety I do not see how we can look for very dramatic switches in the general balance of public expenditure. But in actual practice there has been steady growth in expenditure on social welfare even if our share percentage-wise has not changed much. Recurrent expenditure in the Social Welfare Department grows at the average annual rate of 12%, and staff has expanded from 620 in 1964/65 to nearly 900 in the current year. Of this staff, trained professional staff and those in the welfare assistants grade, i.e. those engaged in direct service to clients have grown from 315 in 1964/65 to 420 in 1967/68, a growth of 33%. The continued expansion of social welfare work, both in the Department and in the voluntary field, is going to depend as much on our ability to continue to find good trained staff as on finance. As for subventions to voluntary agencies these have been increasing in recent years by nearly 15% a year, and have on average amounted to about 75% of the amounts requested by agencies. Perhaps I should mention here that every subvention application is considered in the fullest detail by the Social Welfare Advisory Committee before it goes to Finance Committee, and that during the last few years practically every cent that the Advisory Committee has recommended has been granted. Membership of the Committee, with the exception of the Director of Social Welfare, is entirely unofficial and largely comprises people who are themselves actively involved in social welfare work.
Expenditure will certainly rise as developments at present in the pipeline come to fruition. Among those shortly to emerge from the pipeline are a new approved school, a training centre and hostel for mentally defective people, the World Rehabilitation Fund Day Centre for disabled persons, an extension to the Po Leung Kuk to enable it to care more adequately for mentally defective children, an extension to the Advanced Training Centre for the Blind, additional youth centres to be provided by voluntary agencies and at least three estate welfare buildings; all these are due for completion in 1968 alone. Other substantial commitments likely to arise before the end of 1969 and which will increase our recurrent commitments, are community centres at Yuen Long and Chai Wan, and the Lady Trench Training Centre for youth leaders and nursery workers.
As regards direct relief, which unfortunately is all that some people still think of when social welfare is mentioned, expenditure is rising as a result of decisions made early in the summer regarding new and more favourable eligibility criteria for relief. The number of people in receipt of relief assistance has risen by 29% since May, and expenditure on this service will therefore be markedly higher in the coming year.
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Let none of this be thought to imply that we in the Department are not striving for improvements, but equally let me say flatly that the common belief that all we need is a large and immediate increase in money which we are being denied by a parsimonious Financial Secretary is oversimple and misleading. We have to progress at a manageable pace and I accept my share of responsibility for the pace at which we do proceed.
May I, Sir, in conclusion, say how much I personally appreciate the assistance that Urban Councillors give, either personally or through the ward offices, in bringing to the attention of my department people who appear to be in need and whom we or voluntary agencies may be able to help. I welcome these referrals, because though many thousands come to us direct or from voluntary agencies there are still people who do not seem to reach us in these ways, and Councillors and ward offices perform a very useful function in establishing contact for them. I would only suggest that where urgency seems to be indicated it may be better to refer the client direct to our nearest office than to my head office, and I am arranging to issue an up-to-date list of our offices for different districts to all the ward offices and personally to all the unofficial Urban Councillors. (Applause).
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS: -Mr. Chairman, before I deal with the points raised by members in their speeches I propose to speak briefly about some of the work of the Public Works Department, particularly in those spheres which are of interest to the Urban Council.
On Housing, there has been very real progress with 156,450 individual units of Resettlement completed since January 1st and 32,700 of Government Low Cost Housing. In the same period we have completed 10 Estate Schools containing 240 classrooms. The public meeting of the Housing Authority, which is to be held on January 23rd, would I think be a more appropriate time to go into details.
I'm afraid that the Kennedy Town Incinerator is still having teething troubles but I am confident that the many minor modifications now being made will prove successful. Meanwhile the construction of the Lai Chi Kok Incinerator, where the lessons learned at Kennedy Town are being incorporated as work proceeds, is progressing well. So also are the two Abattoirs.
It is not often that we hear an Urban Councillor placing the blame for delays fairly and squarely on the shoulders of one of the Council's Select Committees, and as the person who usually gets the brick-bats where markets and abattoirs are concerned I am extremely grateful to Mr. Wilfred WONG. I can assure him that once we receive a clear brief of what is required in the way of markets we shall do all we can to get on with the job and make up for the lack of progress over
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