covered a wide range of welfare activities including assistance to homes for the aged, a drug rehabilitation centre, mentally and physically dis- abled persons and youth development schemes. Additional staff was provided in the Social Welfare Department to make arrangements for expansion of the number of recreation programmes provided for school children and other young people particularly during the summer vaca- tion. During the year more than 250,000 children took part in pro- grammes organized by voluntary agencies and the Education and Social Welfare Departments, working in close consultation; the purpose of such programmes being to promote the constructive and enjoyable use of leisure time, and to afford opportunities to those young people who sought an outlet for their energies in service to others and the under- taking of civic responsibility.
4. In the field of child care Government's established policy pro- vides for the subsidization of up to 1,000 new places in day nurseries each year to cater for children from many needy families whose parents are unable to care for them because they have to go out to work or for some other reason. A review of this policy is to be undertaken so as to ensure that its aim is being fulfilled.
5. In the resettlement estates Government has agreed to provide financial assistance for agencies establishing services in new buildings, to be called estate welfare buildings, constructed as annexes to the residential blocks. Financial assistance will be available from the Lotteries Fund to agencies for capital costs involved in alterations and equipment; assurance of recurrent assistance on an approved scale for the first year of operation has been secured to enable approved voluntary agencies to undertake the planning of extended services such as day nurseries, boys' and girls' clubs and youth groups, children's libraries and casework services for those in need. Estate welfare buildings are already planned in six resettlement estates, and the first of these is expected to be completed in August 1968.
6. Government has also recently been reviewing the working of the programme for providing public assistance for families in need, under which limited extensions were made in the criteria for relief to take account of rent, education and other vital household expenses, and cash assistance was authorized for certain categories of persons in lieu of the standard provision of cooked food or dry rations. Expenditure from public funds on the public assistance programme has increased sharply during the current year. One of the greatest social needs continues to
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