Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1965-1966 — Page 10

velopments have enhanced the desire and the capacity of welfare organizations to meet around the table and to discuss ways in which their services can be coordinated and integrated. From this point, it was just a short and logical step to agree to participate with the Social Welfare Department in a joint planning exercise in which the social welfare resources of Hong Kong-personnel, programme, facilities and finance could be assessed in the context of social needs of the next five years. A Joint Planning Committee was set up almost immediately the White Paper was settled, and in order to establish a true partnership of the official and voluntary elements it was agreed that the chairman- ship of successive meetings of the Committee should go alternately to the Director of Social Welfare and a member of the Executive Com- mittee of the Council of Social Service. By the end of the year the framework of the plan for social welfare services for the five years ahead had been agreed in principle and discussion on the sections of the overall plan at sub-committee level was in process.

3 Even before a start could be made on translating the 'Aims and Policy' statement into plans, however, it was felt that reliable informa- tion was needed about the existing social welfare services-their extent, coverage, integration (or lack of it), their effectiveness and limitations. Clearly, the absence of basic data on social needs, which would be essential in determining priorities of services, is a greater hindrance in planning social welfare services than it would be, say, in the field of education or medical services where the needs are clearer, more concise and based on long established practice elsewhere. As the White Paper says in its second sentence 'Social welfare covers a broader, less concise but no less essential field of need'; moreover social welfare services are much newer, the public demand for them is less clear cut and the alter- natives more complex; and the experience of the organizations and practitioners, whether official or voluntary, is far more limited than in the case of education and medicine. Could social needs and resources be reliably gauged in a full-scale study undertaken by a skilled social scientist? This was the question raised by the prospect of beginning a Five Year Plan with insufficient data. Would the findings of such a study suggest the direction in which social welfare services might best develop over the period of the plan? In tackling these and other questions, the Government decided that the objective views of a trained social scientist would be of value, and the services of Professor Lady WILLIAMS, professor emeritus of social economics in the University of London, were obtained for a feasibility study made possible through the

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