CO129-629-8 Social policy 1-12-1949 - 31-12-1951 — Page 17

apart from

dercial staff

Chinese Affairs without amending numerous ordinances, and is also able to make use of the District Watch Force for carrying out enquiries etc., does not carry very much weight since, if it is necessary in the public interest that the Social Welfare Officer should perform these duties it should be quite a simple matter to amend the various ordinances to give him the necessary authority or alternatively to give him authority to make use of the District Watch Force as he needs. The Department should eventually be entirely staffed by professionally trained social welfare workers. When that happens there can no longer be any grounds for regarding it as part of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs any more than, e.g., the Medical Department. Moreover, although for a time it may be necessary to fill the higher social welfare posts by Administrative Officers owing to lack of social welfare officers of the necessary experience and training, the time will come when such posts ought to be filled by properly qualified social welfare officers. It would only be right then that the Head of the Social Welfare Department should be a professionally trained officer and not under the Secretary for Chinese Affairs. If this particular proposal is not acceptable or not possible at present, I think that the aim should be complete separation as soon as circumstances permit. Most of the work of other Depart- ments, e.g. the Medical Department, is presumably mainly concerned with Chinese, and these Departments do not on that account remain under the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.

I note that the Governor has agreed to the appointment of a Deputy to the Social Welfare Officer and that provision for a Cadet Officer Class II has been made for this purpose.

This is an administrative post. In my view the post should eventually be occupied by a professionally trained social welfare officer with proper social welfare qualifications. Nobody would suggest that such a post as the Deputy Director of Medical Services should be filled by an Administrative Officer, and it is equally unsatis- factory in the Social Welfare Department.

In his second recommendation Mr. Chinn suggested that a trained European woman officer with case work experience ought to be appointed. The Governor opposes this. I do not think that this need be pressed provided that a suitably qualified and experienced local woman can be made available.

been

I note that there has/some measure of success in bringing together certain voluntary organisations, vide recommendation 3. This is important as there is evidently a good deal of over- lapping of work by the various organisations and where these are subsidised from public funds it is wasteful, and machinery ought to be set up to provide supervision over the activities of these organisations. As stated in Mr. Chinn's report, paragraph 23, the ideal arrangement would be for the voluntary societies themselves to form a co-ordinating body which would establish standards etc.

As regards recommendation 6(iii), the Governor states that it now appears that the statutory provision for dealing with the problem of relief would not in fact be the most effective way, and that it is preferable to rely on appropriate administrative measures. The reasons for this are not stated, but they may be due to the size of this problem in Hong Kong. Here again I think that the aim should be to adopt this recommendation as soon as circumstances permit.

In

17