TNAG-0876-FCO40-1086-Development-of-social-welfare-policy-in-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 170

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CONFIDENTIAL

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香港總督官邸

THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

наказу). HICK 234/20ET

INDE

2 8 MAR 1979

Des Ritin No ika

Retinit

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FLAGSTAFF HOUSE

HONG KONG

17 February 1979

SICKNESS, DEATH AND RETIREMENT BENEFIT SCHEME

1.

Thank you for your letter of 12 January enclosing Heppell's notes. It was typically helpful of him to take so much trouble. Nevertheless I remain perplexed as to how to proceed, and a lot more work will ne necessary before we will be clear about what should be

We done in respect of covering these specific risks. are of course committed to doing this in the terms of paragraph 97 of my speech to the Legislative Council in October last.

There

2. Meanwhile two things have become depressingly clear. The massive expansion of payments and services to be set out in the White Paper and already being implemented, is stretching the administrative capacity of the Social Welfare Department to the limit. is no question of it undertaking, for the time being, more than the expansion already mapped out. Secondly in the circumstances of the mildly deflationary budget that our economic situation requires, there is no room to undertake expansion of Social Welfare expenditure in addition to that already written into the White Paper, and the Social Welfare Development Plan.

3.

This fits

We must therefore wait until the Social Welfare Department has been strengthened and worked its way into the new programmes, and the estimates season for 1980/81 is approaching before it would be reasonable to put new proposals to Executive Council. in well with the Commissioner for Labour's investigation into the possibilities of compulsory insurance against liability under the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance - which is highly relevant to one of the options on how to cover the risk of extended sickness. Though he has already put proposals to the Labour Advisory Board and other interested bodies, he does not expect to have

RJT McLaren Esq

Hong Kong and General Department

FCO

CONFIDENTIAL

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