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MR. HU: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, you say that the proposed renaming of the Section, Hawker Liaison Section, deals inter alia with the collection of statistics of hawkers. Have they in fact ever collected statistics?
CHAIRMAN: As I have explained, Mr. BERNACCHI, the present Licensing Section is already considered inadequate for its present purpose, but when we get more staff for the Liaison Section, then perhaps we could make a start on this work.
MR. FORSGATE: Mr. Chairman, it occurs to me that if you are going to make a policy you can only make a policy on facts. You have got the thing round the wrong way, suggesting that the policy should be made before the facts are known. I would like to recommend that you ask the Commissioner for Statistics for his advice on the collection of this sort of information. After all, he has got an enormously expensive computer which may help to reduce the task which you envisage for this particular Section.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. FORSGATE, I am sure that our present records are not suitable for processing, but I will consult the Organizational Surveys Unit.
MR. BERNACCHI: The other question that I have to ask is on page 2 dealing with information regarding licensed stallholders. The original application forms provide details of individual applicants and you list them. Now, some of these people have been licensees of this Council since just after the war. Is there any procedure for obtaining up-to-date information of this type from time to time?
CHAIRMAN: As I said, Mr. BERNACCHI, I would think before we start using any of the information that we already have, we would need to check that it is up-to-date, and, presumably, the best time for that is when the licences are being renewed.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, I refer to the second last sentence. I would like your clarification of the clause "until the Council has clarified its hawker policy on agreed lines".
CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr. SALES, you are aware that we already have information from the Secretariat on the various lines on which our policy might be built, and this is at present under consideration by the Hawker Policy Select Committee. It will be coming to the Standing Committee of this Council soon.
MR. SALES: Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, the Chairman of the Hawker Policy Select Committee might wish to clarify the position for the Council?
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MR. BERNACCHI: The Hawker Policy Select Committee has, in short, agreed on certain lines, and those lines will be put up to the full Council in Standing Committee at its next meeting.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that the Colonial Secretariat had laid down certain lines on which the Council might frame its hawker policy. Are you suggesting to the Council that the hawker policy is, in essence, established by the Colonial Secretariat?
CHAIRMAN: Not at all, Mr. SALES, but the Government did advise on lines that they thought would be acceptable not only to this Council but to themselves.
MR. SALES: Acceptable to the Colonial Secretariat?
CHAIRMAN: As well as to this Council.
MR. SALES: Before the Council's policy was put forward to the Colonial Secretariat?
CHAIRMAN: That is so.
MR. BERNACCHI: I think, as Chairman of the Policy Select Committee, that I should clarify your own statement Mr. Chairman, that the Government's recommendations, if you would take it as that, were recommendations of general outlines of policy that would be acceptable to the various other Government Departments on which this Council has to depend so much for its policy to be effective, and whether we like it or not, it is a matter of co-operation between not only this Council but various other departments of Government as well.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, through you, could I ask the Chairman of the Hawker Policy Select Committee, whether it is, in his recent experience, a fact or not, that there has been a variation, or rather that the policy of this Select Committee has been at variance with the guide lines laid down by the Colonial Secretariat?
MR. BERNACCHI: There has been one such instance.
MR. SALES: Is it a material factor in the framing of the Urban Council policy on hawkers or is it not?
MR. BERNACCHI: I would think that it is material, and it will be discussed obviously in the Standing Committee.
MR. SALES: Thank you Mr. Chairman for having established the point in Council that the Council's policy on hawkers must be framed according to the guide lines laid down by the Colonial Secretariat.
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, as Chairman of the Select Committee I do not think that I can accept that the Colonial
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