TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 455

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the Governor and 12 elected) is a body corporate, deriving its authority

from the Urban Council Ordinance. Its main revenue is derived from its

share (34.8 per cent) of the yield from rates in the urban area; fees

and charges provide other sources of income. The Council is responsible

for managing its own finances and is the only body taking part in the

business of government in Hong Kong to consist solely of members of the

public. The Council's responsibilities are restricted to Hong Kong

Island, Kowloon and New Kowloon (which have a combined population of

nearly four million). Its main duties are public sanitation and

cleansing, the licensing and hygienic control of all food premises,

offensive trades and bathhouses; and the management and control of

civic centres, museums, football stadia, markets, abattoirs, hawkers,

cemeteries, crematoria and funeral parlours. While the Council has no direct

responsibility for education in the formal sense, its responsibility in

such areas as the provision and management of cultural services and of

public libraries and places of public recreation can be said to encompass

a wide range of services which both complement and enrich the educational

system.

6.

An important aim of the government is that of improving its

contacts with the population at large. The government is also concerned

to ensure that it acts on the best advice available and that its actions

are understood and accepted by those affected. A significant part of the

effort to achieve this aim is a comprehensive network of more than

360 advisory bodies. These bodies, which include both government

employees and members of the public, are a distinctive feature of the

system of government in Hong Kong. Practically all government departments