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Following are the opening remarks by the Director of Housing, Mr D W Pescod, at the second public hearing of the Legislative Council Public Accounts Committee on "Allocation and utilisation of public rental housing flats" (Chapter No.3) of the Director of Audit's Report No.61 today (November 28):
Mr Chairman,
I believe Members will have seen in the press coverage of the suggestion first raised at the Public Accounts Committee hearing on Monday that consideration should be given to deduct marks from students who apply under the quota and points system (QPS) as a disincentive to discourage students from applying for PRH (public rental housing) through this channel. There have been some suggestions that this would be unfair to students.
Both the Long Term Housing Strategy (Steering Committee) and the Director of Audit have recommended that the Housing Authority review the operation of the QPS, specifically to screen out ineligible QPS applicants from the waiting list on a periodic basis. Accordingly, I will be following up on this issue with the Housing Authority.
Members will recall that there was a discussion on the fact that there have been a large number of young people applying for PRH through the QPS in recent years. In that context, there was a comment from one of the Members that students would be most unlikely to get an offer for housing quickly, and even when they do, they are likely to be ineligible. The suggestion was made that we take into account applicants' circumstances when reviewing the QPS system in future. I indicated that we already deduct 30 points from applicants who are living in public rental housing. I went on to accept that we could consider extending this approach to deduct marks from students to give a clear message that public rental housing is for the most disadvantaged in the community. I must stress that this is just one of many suggestions that we have received on ways to rationalise the QPS lists. Others include of course the possibility of setting a higher age limit for applicants. Members will recall that I did not agree with that approach either.
As the media coverage over the last couple of days has clearly shown, this is really a difficult and sensitive issue. As one of the Members remarked, we must be aware of the interests of all parties and be compassionate when we administer the public housing programme. At the same time, we do need to have clear and rational systems for allocating our precious public housing resources. We will study the practicability of all suggestions to enhance the QPS before we make specific recommendations for the Housing Authority Members to consider.
Thank you Mr Chairman.
Ends/Thursday, November 28, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:05
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