XN000022-1976-01-10 — Page 2

Saturday, January 10, 1976

CO-OPERATION NEEDED IN EVALUATING WELFARE SERVICES

The Social Welfare Advisory Committee is consulting directly

representatives of voluntary agencies and other interested parties on how

evaluation of welfare services should be conducted in Hong Kong.

This was stated by Mr. Thomas Lee, Director of Social Welfare

and Chairman of the Social welfare Advisory Committee, in his opening address at the seminar on evaluation this (Saturday) morning.

Mr. Lee stressed that any future evaluation exercise could only be

successful with the co-operation of those who were directly involved in

providing the services.

The Director noted that evaluation would frequently result in a

change of the existing situation. "We must be prepared to accept that

auccessful evaluation should result in a change for the better, and therefore

in an improvement in the quality or effectiveness of our welfare services in

Hong Kong," he said.

Mr. Lee outlined three possible approaches to evaluation in Hong Kong.

He said: "One school of thought is that evaluation should be integrated with

the plarning and review process in order to provide more reliable basic data

for planning purposes.

"Another view is that we should first seek to achieve some degree of

rationalisation of our existing agency services. This approach would be

designed to effect a more equitable distribution of resources towards the

areas of greatest need.

/"A third