TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 273

12.

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Officers are required to forecast their financial requirements in

accordance with the programmes and services identified under the

Development Plan. (Hence, in education, an activity might be identified

in Appendix II, for example, as "Expansion and Development of Government

Secondary Schools: Programme C4, Senior Secondary and Tertiary Education".)

4.15 In addition the Forecast is used as a tool in determining the

financial resources to be made available to departments in the succeeding

financial year. On receipt of the returns, the Finance Branch conducts

a detailed examination in consultation with departments and policy

branches, ensuring that the activities are entered in the correct appendices

and that the levels and timing of expenditure envisaged are realistic.

Following examination of the returns, each Controlling Officer is given

a maximum figure (the provisional acceptable level of annually recurrent

expenditure) within which he will be expected to draw up his draft

Estimates for the next financial year. In normal circumstances this ·

figure is intended to provide for all activities identified in Appendices

I and II of the Forecast although, exceptionally, in a period of severe

financial stringency, it might prove necessary to restrain these below

the levels implied in Appendices I and II.

4.16

New activities entered in Appendix III of the Five Year Forecast

must be ranked by the Controlling Officer in accordance with the following

classification:

(a) Category I activities for which implementation is

considered essential or unavoidable;

(b) Category II activities for which implementation is

highly desirable and for which deferment would cause

serious inconvenience;

(c) Category III activities for which implementation is

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desirable and for which deferment would be inconvenient;