27. Local Education Allowances. Following a recommendation made by the 1971 Salaries Commission, a scheme was introduced enabling Government officers to claim allowances to meet part of the cost of educating their children in Hong Kong at certain designated secondary and primary schools. In connection with a review of the procedure for the payment of the allowances conducted shortly after the scheme came into being, I advised the Secretary for the Civil Service of my view that, especially bearing in mind the relatively small amounts of some of the claims, the documentation involved was excessively cumbersome and I suggested that much work could be saved for departments, the Treasury and the officers themselves if an alternative system was adopted. This view was not accepted.
28. The scheme has now been in force for three years and I have recently carried out a survey of the operating costs. According to my analysis, of the approximately 4,600 claimants in the school year 1974-75, 800 received allowances totalling $1.5 million in respect of English-speaking schools and the remaining 3,800 a little over $820,000 in respect of other schools. The estimated cost to the Treasury alone of administering pay- ment of the allowances was $370,000, of which $300,000 related to the cost of paying the allowances to the officers whose children attended non English-speaking schools, a figure representing 36% of the value of the allowances paid in respect of those schools. I have advised the Secretary for the Civil Service that this would seem to be out of proportion to the benefits conferred: indeed I estimated that in the case of nearly 400 officers the cost of paying the allowances exceeded the amounts they received. It would appear that when introducing the scheme in its present form the volume of work entailed may have been underestimated and I have once more suggested that the system should be simplified, with a view to effecting savings in the cost of administration. This suggestion is now under consideration.
29. Payment Systems. A feature of expenditure by a number of Government departments is the disburse- ment of regular monthly amounts to a variety of individual payees. In making such payments the bank Auto Pay system can be adopted very effectively and economically and this method has been in use for some time by the Social Welfare Department for paying certain public relief allowances. The Education Department also makes subvention payments to schools through the Automatic Payments Centre. An audit review of the latter application indicated that advantage had not been taken of the full facilities offered by the bank as part of their overall Auto Pay plan and the attention of the Director of Accounting Services was invited to the material saving in clerical time and stationery which might be derived from doing so. I also suggested that the suitability of the system for regular payments made by other departments should be investigated with a view to effecting similar savings. Meanwhile the Director of Education has indicated that it might be of considerable benefit to use the system for the periodic collection of school fees and the feasibility of his proposal is being studied by the Treasury.
30. Head 38-Government Supplies Department. Subhead 350. Fork lift truck. The Director of Govern- ment Supplies has recently drawn attention to a case in which duplicated orders for a fork lift truck were in- advertently placed with two different suppliers. The first order, which was given to a United Kingdom firm in February, 1974, was apparently dealt with personally by an officer (now retired) who neglected to obtain formal approval for the order from the Principal Government Electrical and Mechanical Engineer, the responsible authority for the purchase of vehicles and plant required by Government. Because of several procedural errors it was overlooked in the Government Supplies Department that the order had been placed and in November, 1975 the second order was given to a Japanese company. When the duplication was discovered the latter order was cancelled, giving rise to nugatory expenditure in cancellation charges of $5,379. The Director of Government Supplies has expressed the view that the mistake arose from carelessness and he has taken steps to prevent a
recurrence.
31. Head 42-Information Services Department. One of the functions of the Information Services Depart- ment is to monitor the mass media and to bring to the attention of Heads of Departments and other officers, such opinion, comments and other material published therein, as may be thought necessary. In 1975, having reviewed the various means by which he was achieving this object, the Director of Information Services decided to supplement the services he provided, by the publication of a daily review, in English, of public opinion as expressed in the Chinese news media. This review, entitled "The Government Information Services Tabloid” ("The GIST"), is a single sheet two-page tabloid of about 6,000 words in approximately 150 column/inches. Publication commenced on a trial basis in October, 1975 with a circulation of approximately 350 copies issued gratis five times weekly, and was placed on a more permanent footing in August, 1976, by which time circula- tion had been increased to 460 copies per issue, produced at a cost of about $5 for each copy. Before this latter step was taken it was decided to conduct an independent survey of recipients in order to determine their reaction to the publication, although as it was considered that the worth of the service could not readily be measured in monetary terms it was apparently not thought relevant to ask the readers to express a view on the value of the tabloid to them in relation to the production cost per copy. Nevertheless in assessing its merit, 61% of readers said that they were little or no better informed of the contents of the Chinese Press as a result of receiving the paper. I have suggested to the Deputy Financial Secretary that this result could have derived from the
6
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.