XN000022-1995-10-13 — Page 11

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Governor: Well for those who don't know about it, let me tell you one or two things about the Neighbourhood Level Community. Development Project. There are 54 teams in the NLCDP and they started work about 20 years ago, working in some of our most deprived areas, working very often extremely effectively to deal with community problems in run down housing areas, in temporary housing areas, and elsewhere where there was social deprivation and need. The argument at the moment is whether or not, even when housing is cleared, even when for example temporary housing areas are removed, whether we should continue with the teams doing that work or whether they should be re-deployed to other sorts of social work. To social work with young people, to social work with elderly people, to social work with families. The argument isn't about cutting the number of social workers, let's be absolutely clear about that. The argument is about how we can best use the number of social workers that there are in the community. We're discussing that later this month in the Executive Council and I'll tell you what my views are after we've discussed it in the Executive Council. But I want to underline once again that it would be dishonest to suggest that anybody is trying to cut the amount of social work or social provision in Hong Kong. The question is whether we're best focusing social workers, continuing to focus as many social workers on Neighbourhood Development or whether there are other priorities and I think it is a perfectly reasonable argument for the community to be having. A number of views have been expressed. The Council for Social Services, LegCo and LegCo Panels and other community groups and we have to listen to what everybody says before making up our minds.

Question (in Chinese): Thank you Mr Patten. Imported Labour is the issue. You stated in your policy address that a supplementary scheme will be replacing the present scheme. I do believe that we have to import a certain quota of imported labour because we do have a labour shortage problem. The Thai workers have had to protest because a lot of the money has not been given to them. I'm sure a lot of companies would prefer to employ local people but they brought in imported labour so that the money can be kept behind, but I do believe that local employers are very willing to hire local employees. We must be able to monitor and control the situation. I don't know which government department, perhaps the Police, must enforce monitoring of this situation.

I really think it's very good of you to come down to our level to visit us and to have a cup of tea every now and then at our level.