XN000022-1996-04-03 — Page 38

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I hope that this explanation makes it clear that my written answers to certain Members' questions during the special Finance Committee meeting on funding of the arts accurately and fully reflected the factual position and were not designed to confuse Members or to dismiss their legitimate questions.

I now turn to the two Strategic Plans drawn up by the ADC and the Hong Kong Sports Development Board respectively. Prior to the production of those two plans, the ADC as well as the SDB were advised by my predecessor that, because of the Government's annual resource allocation timetable, it was simply not possible to consider their additional funding requirements in the context of the 1996/97 budget and that therefore their Strategic Plans should start in 1997/98, and not in 1996/97. The SDB and the ADC both chose to ignore this advice and in October and December 1995 respectively submitted Strategic Plans starting in 1996/97, well after the deadline, i.e. June 1995, for the Government's resource allocation exercise for the year 1996/97. It is therefore unfair to criticise the 1996/97 budget for not making provisions for the first year of the two Strategic Plans.

As for 1997/98 onwards, the Government is now considering the appropriate levels of subvention in the light of the two Strategic Plans. The recurrent subventions of the ADC and the SDB for 1996/97 are $56m and $78m respectively. The proposed expenditure for the year 1997/98 set out in their Strategic Plans are $218m and $156m respectively. These represent increases of 290% and 100% respectively over their subventions in 1996/97. It is of course incumbent on me as the responsible policy secretary to do my best to help them realise their plans as far as possible. However, given the budgetary guideline that each year's overall growth in public expenditure should not exceed the medium-term trend GDP growth, which is 5%, and since there will be other competing claims for a share of this overall growth of 5%, it would not be realistic for the two bodies to expect to be able to increase their subventions significantly. They, and I, will have no choice but to find alternative sources of funding.

Members may wish to note that the two major organisations responsible for funding cultural, sports and recreational activities in Hong Kong are the Urban and Regional Councils. Together they manage the vast majority of our recreational and cultural facilities and enjoy the lion's share of public funding for culture and sports. The Urban Council will in 1996/97 spend $901m on the arts and culture and $1,846m on recreation and sports. The Regional Council has earmarked $524m for the former and $2,061m for the latter. In 1996/97, the two Councils' combined spending on the arts is 25 times that of Government's recurrent subvention to the ADC and their combined spending on sports and recreation is 50 times that of the subvention the SDB is going to receive from the Government. I leave Honourable Members to draw their own conclusions from these interesting comparisons.

End

Thank you.