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working efficiency, will these posts be deleted next year? Since they do not affect our efficiency, there is no point in retaining them.

MR. MACKENZIE (in English):---Mr. Chairman, I feel it is not quite as simple as that. We have, in fact, a number of frozen posts in areas where our decision of future Council policy has yet to be decided. For instance, the meat delivery service which is under study. We have 140 vacancies amongst the frozen posts of 550 and also, as you are aware, the Hawker Control Force is still under consideration by the Council in terms of the future activities, and we have 317 posts there which will not be filled until a final policy decision has been made. In other areas of frozen posts, we have an increasing mechanization in cleansing areas which is reducing or freezing staff areas and also, for instance, the Libraries Select Committee is considering automation in certain areas which could affect future establishment. So it will not be possible until later policy decisions have been made to actually eliminate these posts.

MR. TSIN (in Cantonese): -Mr. Chairman, I notice from the paper tabled by Mr. MACKENZIE in his answer under the grade of Health Inspector whilst establishment is 284, there are 33 vacant posts. Can this Council be told what is being done to reduce these vacancies?

MR. MACKENZIE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I think I would like to refer Mr. TSIN to the answer given, perhaps two or three months ago, in this Council on the question of staff training and future policy on training. In fact, the staff training facilities were largely reorganized last year.

The Health Inspectorate area is regarded as an area of particular priority and we hope that with the initiation of local training facilities, as opposed to dependency on overseas training, we will be able to fill numbers of the expatriate ranks from locally trained personnel.

(3) MR. JOHN MACKENZIE asked the following question (in English) :-

Is the Council satisfied with the arrangements and control of the new Hawker Permitted Areas, and what are our future plans regarding the expansion or contraction of this scheme?

What protests have been received from shop-owners and residents of these areas, and how does the Council reconcile these interests with those of the hawkers and the clients they serve?

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MR. HENRY H. L. HU, CHAIRMAN OF THE HAWKERS SELECT COM- MITTEE, replied as follows (in English):—

Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend Mr. John MacKenzie

for asking this question.

The new Hawker Permitted Area scheme is being conducted as an experiment and thus it is not possible to say with complete certainty how it will evolve as any future plans will depend on how the experiment turns out.

With present manpower the department considers that it can meet the control commitments allocated to it such as clearing away abandoned hawker goods, illegal stalls, etc. each day within the areas of the experiment.

There have been number of protests from shopkeepers and residents regarding the scheme mostly made to the CDOs but some have been made to the Council. One of these has already been circulated to Members.

It is very difficult to strike a balance between the need for hawkers to earn a living in those difficult times when many people are out of employment and the equally legitimate claims of shopkeepers, etc. All that I can say is that the situation is being kept under review and the Hawkers Select Committee will try to ensure that there will be no undue hardship anywhere.

MR. MACKENZIE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I have several supplementaries. May I ask Mr. Hu, have any specific discussions taken place, and with what results, with shopkeepers and other residents in these proposed permitted areas and with the licensed hawkers association?

Mr. Hu (in English):-The Select Committee did visit the permitted areas on 1st March 1975, that was Saturday, then on Thursday, 6th March, the Hawkers Select Committee discussed in details the various aspects of this problem. For example, there was a complaint to add from the Tung Choi Street shopkeepers, we did discuss various ways to solve their hardship. One of these ways is to limit the hawking time and this, which I will propose at the end of this meeting, is to limit the hawking time in Tung Choi Street from noon to twelve midnight, so the shopkeepers could have free access to their shops in the whole morning. As a matter of fact, the shopkeepers only wish to have from 11.00 a.m. to midnight for the hawkers, but we, the Select Committee, gave one

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