ENG-2000 — Page 275

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

orders issued requiring owners to carry out investigation and repair of buried water- carrying services affecting private slopes.

Proper management and timely maintenance are key to the continuing health and safety of buildings. Responsibility for management and maintenance rests with owners. The Government's role is to assist and support them. In February, the Government set up a task force under the Secretary for Planning and Lands to work out a strategy for promoting timely maintenance, tackling unauthorised building works and controlling advertisements signboards. As the issues are complex, the task force has since November been consulting the Legislative Council in a series of sessions and seeking views from District Councils, and professional and other bodies concerned. Ideas put forward include enhanced government support for property owners in need, a new approach to enforcement against illegal building works, devolution of authority to building professionals and contractors, recourse to market forces and sustained public education. The Government will later prepare an action plan to ensure public safety, arrest dilapidation, prevent premature ageing of buildings and foster a culture of building care.

The Buildings Department appointed a consultant in August to carry out a comprehensive review of the Buildings Ordinance and its regulations. The objective of the review is to modernise the legislation and create a regulatory environment that is more supportive, streamlined and user-friendly, yet deals more effectively with contraventions. This will involve, on the one hand, changing the existing prescriptive rules into performance-based requirements, removing barriers to innovation and devolving more responsibility upon building professionals in the private sector, while, on the other hand, widening the department's enforcement powers and increasing the maximum penalties for offences. The first batch of legislative amendments is expected to be introduced into the Legislative Council in 2001.

The Public Sector

The Architectural Services Department acts as the Government's architect in providing financial management, professional and technical services for all public building developments, except public housing, in three main areas:

(i) Monitoring and advisory services to the Administration and all government departments, including overseeing subvented projects financed by the Government. Altogether, 1 700 projects valued at $60 billion were monitored in 2000.

(ii) Professional multi-disciplinary services for project management, design (architectural, structural, building services, quantity survey and landscape), documentation, contract letting and supervising construction of building projects in the Public Works Programme and those of the Hospital Authority. During the year, the department's rolling programme covered 370 projects under planning, design and construction, and valued at $80 billion.

(iii) Building maintenance services including maintenance, alteration, addition, fitting out and refurbishment of all public buildings and facilities, as well as those of the Hospital Authority, totalling a floor area of approximately 25 million square metres. The department also undertook conservation and restoration works to listed buildings and gazetted monuments, and emergency

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