TNAG-0608-FCO40-756-Planning-paper-on-progress-made-on-social-security-in-Hong-K-1977 — Page 78

C.S. 166

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XCC(77)65

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for disability allowance (and for public assistance) and five years resi- dence for old age allowance. At present, when a person receiving an allowance leaves Hong Kong, he does not immediately qualify for the allowance on his return. Instead he has to wait for a period, the length of which depends on how long he was away from Hong Kong. It is con- sidered unreasonable to expect such a person to requalify for any allowance (whether community care allowance or public assistance). Instead it is proposed that such persons should not have to requalify on their return. Under the new test, such persons would lose the allowance for periods of more than 8 weeks out of Hong Kong, but payment would resume when they reapplied after their return. There would not be a significant cost, and might even be a saving when administrative costs are taken into account. The change would be widely welcomed.

Extending community care allowance scheme to those incapable of work

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Consultations have indicated general agreement that it would be desirable and logical to extent the community care allowance scheme to cover those incapable of work for prolonged periods because of illness, injury or disability; and it is proposed that this be done. The aim of the extension would be to provide an allowance to those whose incapacity had meant that they were unable to work over a long period and who needed some measure of care and attention. A further consideration is that since the provision of residential institutional accommodation is limited and likely to remain so, the allowance would have the additional advantage of encouraging that care to be given in the community as far as possible.

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An allowance would be payable to those who have been resident in Hong Kong for 5 years and due to illness (physical or mental), injury or disability have been incapable of work for the previous 18 months and who are medically certified as still being incapable of work. To the extent that a separate name was needed, it would be called an incapacity

allowance ( 復康津貼)。 The allowance would not be payable to those receiving an old age allowance or disability allowance, since to do so would duplicate social security provision. The amount would be half the disability allowance: at the present time, this would be $90. On the basis that there is an initial take-up rate of only 25%, the estimated initial annual net cost of the allowance is $9 million, allowing for $2 million savings on public assistance. But the eventual take-up rate is likely to reach that of the old age allowance scheme (73.4%), in which case the net annual expenditure would reach $34 million plus adminis- trative on-cost of 5%, making say $36 million in all.

These are very rough order of costs. The administrative costs allow for costs of

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