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Mr Patten hoped that the media would give the government's Progress Report and Policy Commitments - "annual exercises in candour" - the careful study they deserved.
These documents were part of a revolution in the way Hong Kong's Government and public service did their jobs, he said: "They spell out in detail what we have been doing to modernise the way our government governs. We have tried to open up the way we do business. We have tried to blow away the cobwebs, to equip Hong Kong's Government not just for the transition, but for the new millennium."
Performance Pledges, Customer Liaison Groups, Progress Reports, Policy Commitments, the expansion of the role of the Commissioner for Administrative Complaints, the Code on Access to Information, reforms to legal aid, and his question- and-answer sessions were part of that process.
Few, if any, governments anywhere tried to be as frank about their failures as well as their successes, he said.
Mr Patten told the Legislative Council most of the aims set four years ago been achieved or were on schedule for completion within the five-year timetable.
had
The quality of life for most people had improved across the board in the past five years.
Students, parents and teachers had benefited from improvements in educational standards, including 2.400 more teachers by September 1996.
The disadvantaged had benefited from steps such as the new Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme, introduced in 1993 and enactment of the Disability Discrimination Ordinance.
Sick people had been provided with almost 3,000 new hospital beds out of 4,200 promised. The rest would follow next year.
Housing had experienced considerable change with more flats available, far fewer temporary housing areas, and the introduction of the Sandwich Class Housing Scheme which aimed to provide new homes for 30,000 families between 1995 and 2003.
Since 1992, pollution in rivers and streams in the New Territories had been cut by 70 per cent; 80 per cent of petrol now sold was unleaded, and 50 per cent of vehicles now used catalytic converters.