ENG-1988 — Page 201

11

Social Welfare

福社

新會

MORE benefits for people on public assistance were among the improvements introduced in the social security and social welfare programmes during the year.

To enable these and other projects to be carried out, the government increased spending in this area of activity by more than 25 per cent, to a total of $3,607 million for the 1988–9 fiscal year.

Some of the greater public benefits were a ten-per cent rise in the rates of public assistance, the introduction of a ‘higher disability allowance', which is twice the rate of the normal disability allowance, for disabled persons aged 60 and above who require constant attendance and the extension of old-age allowance to those aged 68–9.

In the constant effort to provide more and better welfare services to meet the rising expectations of the people, the Social Welfare Department works closely with the subvented welfare agencies.

The Director of Social Welfare is responsible for carrying out government policies on social security and social welfare, based on the objectives set out in three White Papers - Integrating the Disabled into the Community: A United Front (1977), Social Welfare into the 1980s (1979), and Primary Education and Pre-primary Services (1981).

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In its social welfare work, the government is also advised on policy by two groups the Social Welfare Advisory Committee, covering the area of social welfare, and the Rehabilitation Development Co-ordinating Committee, on matters of rehabilitation. Members of these committees are appointed by the Governor, with unofficial members as chairmen.

Most of the subvented welfare agencies, which play a big role in providing welfare services, are affiliated to the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.

As a result of the combined efforts of the government and community groups in promoting mental health education, there is now a greater understanding by the people of mental illness, as well as more acceptance of half-way houses established for discharged mental patients to help reintegrate them into society.

As for the care of the elderly population, efforts were made during the year to improve the planning ratio of care-and-attention home places for them and to step up the provision of such places. To monitor and to improve the service of private elderly homes, a Registration Office of Private Elderly Homes was set up in the department.

In the area of services for offenders, efforts have been concentrated on the improvement of training programmes in the department's correctional institutions for juvenile offenders, including the recruitment of qualified teachers to run all academic classes, devising a new set of text and material specially adapted to suit the needs and interests of the residents; re-structuring of objectives and programme content of its prevocational workshops with a view to equipping its trainees with practical and marketable trade skills for the purpose