ENG-2003 — Page 423

PUBLIC ORDER

act as an advisory body to provide practical assistance in planning and running typologies workshops.

To combat transnational crimes effectively, Hong Kong continued to support mutual legal assistance between jurisdictions. By year-end, it had entered into 15 agreements and signed 13 bilateral agreements with other jurisdictions on surrender of fugitive offenders.

In sharing experience and expertise, anti-drug personnel took part in various international meetings, seminars, and workshops concerned with anti-drug policies, law enforcement, treatment and rehabilitation, and preventive education.

Beat Drugs Fund

To promote community efforts to beat drugs, the Government established a Beat Drugs Fund in 1996 with a capital outlay of $350 million. During the year, a total of $5.52 million was allocated to 16 projects. Apart from education and publicity projects, treatment and rehabilitation and research works were also sponsored. For example, a substance abuse clinic was allotted funds to provide professionally led vocational assessment and counselling services to high-risk youths and young substance abusers through outreaching programmes. Another community organisation was funded to train up high-risk youths to serve as peer instructors in outreaching anti-drug activities.

Civil Aid Service

The Civil Aid Service (CAS) is a government auxiliary emergency service established under the Civil Aid Service Ordinance. It has an establishment of 3 634 adult volunteers, 3 232 cadets and 115 civil servants.

The primary duty of the CAS is to provide civil support services during emergencies. Members of the volunteer service are trained to perform emergency duties during typhoons, flooding and landslips; to search for and rescue people in distress in the mountains; to help evacuate or rescue victims trapped under collapsed buildings or buried in landslips; and to combat vegetation fires and also oil pollution at sea.

In 2003, CAS members were moblised twice during typhoons, once for a flood rescue operation, 58 times for mountain search and rescue duties, and 47 times for vegetation fire-fighting operations. At the peak of the SARS outbreak, between March and June, the CAS was mobilised to man the medical surveillance posts at all land control points; to assist the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau in managing the isolation centres; to distribute daily necessities to residents under home confinement at the Amoy Gardens housing estate; and to escort suspected SARS contacts to the isolation centres.

The CAS continued to deploy more than 200 members for vegetation fire-fighting and hiking trail/country park patrol duties on Sundays and public holidays during the dry season periods (January to April and October to December). In other duties, such as providing assistance in crowd management, the CAS assigned members to 233 public events and also deployed 35 members daily at the Lo Wu Control Point.

During the year, the CAS continued to provide safety and skills training to other government departments, non-governmental organisations and organised groups. The training included 10 talks on mountain safety, and 24 courses covering basic mountain search and rescue work, safe movements on slopes and at heights, and crowd management. In support of the Pre-employment Training Programme and the

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