TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 268

4.7

7

course from four to three years was not pursued in the

White Paper.

W

The publication of a white paper (which is first approved by

the Governor in Council and then tabled in the Legislative Council) is

an indication of the government's intentions in a particular policy

area, with public opinion taken into account. The Finance Committee

of the Legislative Committee takes note of the financial implications

in terms of broad policy targets that is the order of costs of the

proposals as a whole is noted but detailed justification is required

thereafter for each proposal or group of related proposals. Implementation

of complex white paper proposals may take several years to achieve, during

which time some of the proposals are likely to become overtaken by events,

and others affected by changes in the relative priorities of government

policy targets as a whole.

4.8

In this connection, the 1978 White Paper drew attention to the

high financial cost of implementing the proposed measures, pointing out

that the timing of their fulfilment would be subject to a regular review

of the overall resources available to the government and of the share of

them which properly could be made available for senior secondary and

tertiary education. A statement of this type is a necessary proviso as

budgetary conditions can affect the timetable for achievement of policy

objectives. Some proposals in the 1974 White Paper, for example, had

to be extensively modified for financial reasons - in particular, the

proposed school building programme was slowed down and the shortfall of

places resulting both from this and from the decision taken administratively

to abolish the SSEE one year earlier than originally planned was partially

met by increasing the number of bought places in private schools. The

fate of white paper proposals depends to a large extent on the government's

Development Plan and the closely related Five-Year Forecast of Revenue

and Expenditure: these are described briefly in the following paragraphs.