TNAG-0585-FCO40-718-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 65

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CH. 37

PART III

Financial assistance under s. 20 of Children Act 1948.

Power of local authority to guarantee apprenticeship deeds etc. of persons in their care.

Extension

of power of local authority

to assume parental rights.

Children and Young Persons Act 1963

(2) Any local authority may conduct or assist other persons in conducting research into any matter connected with their functions under the enactments mentioned in subsection (1) of this section or their functions connected with the adoption of children.

46.—(1) In subsection (1) of section 20 of the Children Act 1948 (which authorises a local authority to contribute towards the cost of accommodation and maintenance of certain persons over the age of eighteen who have been in the care of a local authority) after the word being" there shall be inserted the words "either a person who has attained the age of seventeen but has ceased to be in the care of a local authority, or ".

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(2) In subsection (2) of the said section 20 (which authorises a local authority to make grants towards the education or train- ing of certain persons over the age of eighteen who immediately before they attained that age were in the care of a local authority) for the word "eighteen ", in the first place where it occurs, there shall be substituted the word "seventeen" and for the words " immediately before they attained the age of eighteen" there shall be substituted the words “ at or after the time when they attained the age of seventeen ".

47. While a person is in the care of a local authority under the principal Act, the principal Scottish Act or the Children Act 1948 or by virtue of an order under the Matrimonial Proceedings (Children) Act 1958 or the Matrimonial Proceed- ings (Magistrates' Courts) Act 1960, the local authority may undertake any obligation by way of guarantee under any deed of apprenticeship or articles of clerkship entered into by that person; and where the local authority have undertaken any such obligation under any deed or articles they may at any time (whether or not the person concerned is still in their care) undertake the like obligation under any deed or articles supple- mental thereto.

Children in respect of whom parental rights may be or have been assumed by local authority

48.-(1) Where, after a child has been received into the care of a local authority under section 1 of the Children Act 1948, the whereabouts of any parent or guardian of his have remained unknown for not less than twelve months, then, for the purposes. of section 2 of that Act (which enables a local authority in certain circumstances to assume parental rights) the parent or guardian shall be deemed to have abandoned the child.

(2) The power of a local authority under paragraph (b) of section 2(1) of the Children Act 1948 to resolve that all rights and powers of a parent or guardian shall vest in them may be