TNAG-2989-FCO40-3575-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-talks-betwee-1992 — Page 109

--For children, we will provide an additional 5 600 nursery places; an extra 1 200 day creche places; 200 more foster care places; an additional 45 small group homes; and an extra 60 school social workers.

We will also provide an additional 44 home help teams.

These important measures will do much to enhance the quality of life for many of our fellow citizens and their families.

A Social Security Package

46. Alongside the new financial arrangements we have put in place for Social Welfare, we can also undertake a thorough overhaul of the Social Security system. We will introduce a Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme to improve means-tested benefits. This package will provide, as a consolidated sum, income support for the special needs of particular groups. In addition, we will continue to provide benefits in the form of a Social Security Allowance for those who are elderly or disabled but who will not receive the new means-tested Comprehensive Social Security payments. And I can assure them that their level of benefits will be maintained under the new arrangements.

47. Basic rates under the existing Public Assistance Scheme range between $600 a month for an individual in a family to $825 a month for a single person living alone. These create anomalies and unfair differences in levels of existing payments. The new Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme will remove these defects. For example, the current sliding scale of basic rates of $600, $610 and $620 for family members not entitled to any supplement will be replaced by a flat rate of $820 a month. The current rate of $825 a month for a single adult will be increased by 15% to $950 a month.

48. The new scheme will ensure that those most in need will be better off. Let me give some examples of what the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme will mean in terms of actual benefits.

-At present, an elderly person receives $1,238 a month if living alone, or $1,023 a month if living with a family. These rates will be increased by 15% to $1,420 and $1,180 respectively.

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