- 8 -
Subvention for non-government organisations
Following is a question by the Hon Chan Yuen-han and a reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
It is learnt that the Government currently does not provide housing allowance to employees of subvented welfare agencies, but individual agencies can use the financial resources at their disposal to provide housing allowance to their employees. This has given rise to public concern about the spending of funds in subvented welfare agencies. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
(b)
(c)
Whether the Government has considered extending the housing benefits for civil servants to employees of subvented welfare agencies; if not, why not;
the number of subvented welfare agencies which provide housing allowance to their employees, together with the name of the agencies concerned, the number of employees receiving the allowance and the amount of allowance received by each employee; and the sources from which individual agencies have obtained financial resources to provide housing allowances to their employees; and
whether the Government agrees that subvented welfare agencies can use charitable donations to provide housing allowance to their employees; if so, of the mechanism put in place to monitor the expenses on the provision of housing allowance to employees by such agencies:
Reply:
Mr President,
At present, the Administration subvents 174 non-government organisations (NGOs) to provide various social welfare services. The amount of subvention is sufficient to cover staff salaries (including provident fund), and specified administrative expenses.
NGOs are independent organisations outside the Government structure. Apart from subvented services, many of them run other non-subvented projects for the community, through their own sources of funds. NGOs have autonomy in determining the remuneration package which enable them to employ and retain personnel that they consider best suit for their organisations.