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Wednesday, March 1, 1972

INCREASED NONTILY RATES OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

Proposals Put Forward For Improving Public Assistance Scheme

The Director of Social Welfare has put forward proposals for improving

generally the Public Assistance Scheme and increasing, by about 60 per cent,

the monthly rates in the sliding scale of assistance.

Announcing this in his Budget speech today, the Financial Secretary,

1r. C.P. Haddon-Cave, said this proposal, provision for which had not been

included in the Draft Estimates, would be put shortly to the Finance Committee

of the Legislative Council.

The Financial Secretary said the increased monthly rates of assistance

were being proposed to take account both of increases in the cost of living

since 1970 and of certain essential iters of expenditure for which no account

was taken in the existing levels of assistance.

Mr. Haddon-Cave said his predecessor, while advocating for some years

improvements to the old pra-".70 public assistance scheme, did so with two

qualifications which he must endorse without reservation.

The first qualification was that the rates of assistance should not

be such as to have an adverse effect ca employment and wages.

"Because they take account of cdditional essential items of expenditure,

the revised rates, if approved, will be closer to wages prevailing today than

the present rates were to wages in 1970."

He was reasonably satisfied, from the results of the acheme so far,

that the gap between the rates of assistance and wages would be sufficient.

The second