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Following is a question by the Hon Lau Chin-shek and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (June 14):
Question:
Will the Government:
(a) provide a breakdown, by the number of family members, of the following in each of the past three years
(i) the average monthly payments under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme to recipient families; and
(ii) the number of families whose monthly income is less than the average amount received by the CSSA families with the same number of family members; and
(b) provide a breakdown, according to Table 1, of the total number of persons from the low-income families in item (a)(ii) above?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The amount of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) payment to a family is determined by the circumstances and needs of the family (e.g. the age, health condition and income of its members). Therefore, the amount of CSSA payment differs from family to family. The average monthly CSSA payments represent the overall average figures for reference purposes.
(i) Based on the statistics of the Social Welfare Department (SWD), the average monthly CSSA payments (a breakdown by the number of family members) to recipient families under the CSSA Scheme are shown in Table 2.
(ii) According to the findings of the General Household Survey (GHS) conducted by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD), in the past three years, the number of domestic households with monthly household income less than the average CSSA payment received by a CSSA family of the same size is shown in Table 3.
(b) Based on the statistics from the C&SD, the number of persons living in domestic households as mentioned in (a)(ii) above is shown in Table 4.
Ends/Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Issued at HKT 14:50
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