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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Kenneth Chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Tsang Tak-sing, in the Legislative Council today (March 25):
Question:
The Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education (CPCE) implements the Community Participation Scheme (CPS) every year to sponsor civic education projects organised by various bodies. Funded projects cover topics such as national education, promotion of the Basic Law and human rights education. The Research, Development, Community Participation and Management Subcommittee (the Subcommittee) under CPCE is responsible for vetting and approval of funding applications. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the details, including the names, dates, nature, contents, target participants, numbers of participants and subsidised amounts, of the projects funded under CPS in the past three years (set out in a table);
(2) of the application procedures for CPS, as well as the procedure and criteria for vetting and approval of applications; and
(3) of the membership lists of the Subcommittee in the past three years, and the details of its mechanism for declaration of interests?
Reply:
President,
Our reply to the various parts of the question raised by the Dr Hon Kenneth Chan is as follows:
(1) Through the Community Participation Scheme, the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education (CPCE) grants sponsorship to community organisations to organise activities to promote civic education. Projects include a variety of activities, such as workshops, visits, performance, seminars, exhibitions, carnivals, etc. The details of the supported activities for 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 are summarised at Annexes I, II and III respectively.
(2) The Research, Development, Community Participation and Management Sub-committee (RDCPMSC) of the CPCE plans and implements the Community Participation Scheme. Applications are assessed according to the criteria set out in the published guidelines, including creativity, scale, means of publicity etc. of the proposed projects.
(3) The RDCPMSC comprises both official and non-official members of the CPCE. Its composition in the past three years are at Annex IV. The CPCE has adopted a two-tier reporting system for declaration of interests and requested members to disclose their general pecuniary interests on appointment to the committee and declare interests prior to the discussion of the applications at the meeting. Members with potential conflicts of interests with the organisations seeking sponsorship will not be arranged to assess relevant applications.
Ends/Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Issued at HKT 14:15
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