14-OCT-1992 11:27
FB GS
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... ''', ས ཝཱ ཏཾ, P1!”
P.19
Paper 4 (P.3 of 5)
Establishment of quasi-Government
8.
rities and Trading Funds
Since our present system of expenditure control was implemented in the mid-1980s there has been little change in by the Government We have
the scope of the services prov significant changes in public
seen some small but relatively
expenditure terms. To the extent that these changes have represented the genuine privatisation of activities formerly performed by the Government (e.g. the management of car parks and road tunnels) it can also be argued that they represent genuine reductions in public expenditure and have been treated
as such.
9.
This situation is now changing, the first significant step being the establishment of the Hospital Authority in December 1991.
result of this Authority's assumption of responsibility for the operation of former Government hospitals, and in accordance with the existing definition, only the net subvention to the Authority is now counted as public; expenditure rather than the gross payments as previously.
10.
:
The level of direct revenue of the former Government hospitals is such that this change, on its own,
on its own, is again of no overwhelming significance. However, it has been agreed that the Authority may retain, for the funding of improvements in services, half of the revenue generated by future real increases
in charges. Thus, if such increases are introduced by the Hospital Authority, all else being
being equal,
equal, the Authority's spending may increase in real terms while the net subvention will reduce in real terms (and hence our existing measure of public expenditure). On the face of it this is an anomalous
situation.
11.
A change of far greater consequence would occur if, for example, the proposed Airport Authority were to take over the operation of Kai Tak. Since this is a profitable operation, there would be no subvention and the effect would simply, on our
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.