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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Tsang Tak-sing, in the Legislative Council today (March 18):
Question:
Quite a number of members of the public have relayed to me that the venues in the community halls and community centres (CHs/CCs) under the Home Affairs Department (HAD) have all along been in short supply, and the facilities there are dilapidated and outdated, resulting in inconvenience for users. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the following information about CHs/CCs in each of the past three years: (i) the respective average monthly utilisation rates of the conference rooms and multi-purpose halls (including stages); (ii) the number of cases in which the organisations that had booked the venues were unable to use such venues because the venues had been taken up by certain government departments; the respective numbers of organisations which were given demerit points and/or disqualified from using the venues under HAD's Demerit Points System for the following reasons: (iii) failing to give HAD notice of cancellation of use of the allocated timeslot seven working days prior to the date of the activity, (iv) failing to produce the approval letter for use of the facilities, (v) being late for 15 minutes or more, (vi) the name of the organisation using the facilities or the nature of activity being different from the information given in the application, (vii) failing to clean and restore the venue after using, and (viii) failing to provide post-activity statement of account within one month of completion of a fee-charging activity which had been exempted from charges (set out the information by District Council (DC) district and name of CH/CC in Table 1);
(2) of the details of (i) the new facilities or equipment added to CHs/CCs, (ii) the facilities or equipment therein replaced due to damage caused by hirers, and (iii) the facilities or equipment therein replaced due to wear and tear or aging, in each of the past three years (set out the relevant information by DC district and name of CH/CC in Table 2);
(3) of the current ratio of CHs/CCs the task of hanging/installing banners in which is performed manually to those such task in which is performed by machine; whether the Government will consider having all such tasks performed by machine; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(4) whether the authorities received, in the past three years, any proposal from DCs for building new CHs/CCs; if they did, of the details; whether the authorities have plans to build new CHs/CCs in the next five years; if they do, of the sites for the proposed CHs/CCs together with other details and the justifications for building such CHs/CCs; and
(5) whether it has plans to amend the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines to stipulate that a CH/CC should be provided for a district when its population size has reached a certain level?
Reply:
President,
The Home Affairs Department (HAD) manages community halls and community centres (CHs/CCs) to provide local organisations with venue facilities for holding various community activities, including recreational and cultural events, activities related to building management, meetings, carnivals and seminars, with local communities as the major service target. The daily management and operation of CHs/CCs are under the purview of the respective district offices (DOs).
With the enhancement of the role of District Councils (DCs) in district administration, DCs have been participating in the management of CHs/CCs in their districts since 2008, and District Facilities Management Committees (DFMCs) have been set up thereunder accordingly. The respective DOs and DFMCs have developed a set of procedures and guidelines covering venue application, timeslot allocation as well as criteria for using CH/CC facilities, taking into account the specific local situation, such as the demand for CH/CC facilities and the nature of local organisations. Daily management of CHs/CCs is discharged by the respective DOs in accordance with the set guidelines and procedures.
In 2011, the HAD set up a working group (WG) to review major issues in CH/CC management, including booking system, fee exemption and penalty system. The WG has made a number of recommendations, with a view to ensuring general application of the relevant criteria and some good practices in the management of CHs/CCs. One such recommendation is the implementation of a Demerit Points System (DPS) to advocate prudent use of CH/CC facilities and penalise non-compliance.
Since early 2012, recommendations of the WG have been passed via DOs to the respective DFMCs for consideration of implementation. With the support and approval of DFMCs, these recommendations have been gradually implemented from 2012 onwards.
Our reply to the different parts of the question raised by Dr Hon Kwok is as follows:
(1) Annexes 1(A) to 1(C) set out for the past three years (i) the average utilisation rates of conference rooms and multi-purpose halls (including stages) of CHs/CCs, and (ii) the number of cases in which organisations that had booked the venues were unable to use them because they were taken up by government departments. Such cases mainly involved the using of the venues for emergency and temporary purposes such as temporary shelters, temporary cold shelters and emergency maintenance.
As the DPS was only implemented gradually at DOs starting from the second half of 2012, information of organisations which have been served demerit points and/or disqualified from using the venues for non-compliance mentioned in the questions, namely (iii) failed to give the DOs concerned notice of cancellation of use of the allocated timeslot 7 or 14 working days prior to the date of the activity, (iv) failed to produce the approval letter for use of the CH/CC facilities, (v) late for 15 minutes or more, (vi) the name of the organisation using the CH/CC facilities or the nature of activity was different from the information given in the application, (vii) failed to clean and restore the venue after using, and (viii) failed to provide post-activity statement of account within one month after completion of a fee-charging activity which had been exempted from charges, is only available for 2013 and 2014. Details are at Annexes 1(B) and 1(C).
(2) Annexes 2(A) to 2(C) set out for the past three years (i) the new facilities or equipment added to CHs/CCs, (ii) the facilities or equipment therein replaced due to damage caused by hirers, and (iii) the facilities or equipment therein replaced due to wear and tear or ageing.
(3) Banner-hanging devices in newly completed CHs are generally machine-operated. The proportion of such devices being operated by machine and by hand at existing CHs/CCs is roughly half-half. At present, three DOs have plans to replace manually-operated devices with machine-operated ones at four CHs/CCs, namely Aldrich Bay Community Hall in Eastern District, Discovery Bay Community Hall and Tung Chung Community Hall in Islands District, and Sai Kung Jockey Club Town Hall in Sai Kung District.
DFMCs will continue to take into consideration the demand of local residents and organisations for CH/CC facilities in advising DOs and taking appropriate follow-up actions.
(4) From time to time, local organisations and residents would make suggestions to HAD and respective DOs regarding the provision of new CHs. HAD and DOs would monitor and assess the need for new CHs in the 18 districts having regard to all the relevant factors stipulated in the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines (HKPSG), including population size, and availability of similar community facilities in the vicinity etc., as well as availability of suitable sites. The DCs concerned would be consulted on all proposals for new CHs.
Six new CHs (including one redevelopment project) are under construction. They are in Kowloon City, Kwun Tong, Eastern District, Sha Tin, Tuen Mun and Yuen Long.
(5) According to the prevailing HKPSG, in assessing the need for building a new CH, consideration should be given to a basket of factors, including utilisation rates of existing CHs/CCs, availability of similar community facilities in the vicinity, accessibility of existing CHs/CCs etc., apart from population size of the area. As such, the HKPSG does not set out a specified population size as a criterion for building a new CH.
Ends/Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:00
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