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Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Man-kwong and a reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Ambrose S K Lee, in the Legislative Council today (November 17):

Question:

It has been reported that the Police is planning to gradually reduce or even cease the deployment of police officers to schools as School Liaison Officers ("SLOs") in order to save resources. In this respect, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the respective numbers of primary and secondary school cases dealt with by SLOs each year since 2001, and the current average ratio of SLOs to students;

(b) of the annual expenditure on the School Liaison Programme, the estimated amount saved per year after downsizing or cancelling the Programme and the percentage of the estimated savings against the total annual expenditure of the Police Force; and

(c) whether the Police has assessed the impact of downsizing or cancelling the Programme on the prevention of campus violence and juvenile crimes; if it has, of the results; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

Madam President,

The "Liaison Officer" programme of the Police is carried out at two levels - secondary and primary schools. Taking into account the different needs of secondary and primary school students, Liaison Officers undertake appropriate measures to convey anti-crime messages to students and help them understand the consequences of committing crimes, in order to raise their sense of civic responsibilities, moral values and discipline, and to enhance communication between the students and the Police.

The Liaison Officers have been providing support to schools through a variety of means, which are mainly oriented towards the students as a whole. Such means include organisation of talks and seminars jointly with schools, etc. Although Liaison Officers do handle individual cases involving students, they are not the only Police officers who can handle such cases. The Police districts allocate appropriate manpower to handle individual cases as necessary. Furthermore, not all cases of student misbehaviour require intervention and follow-up action by the Police. In fact, the school authorities, school social workers and other professionals, etc. also play an important role in this respect.

Regarding the three parts of the question, the reply is as follows-

(a) As explained above, the work of School Liaison Officers should not be analysed in terms of their caseload or the corresponding number of students. The Police do not have the breakdown of statistics in this regard.

(b) Since 2001, the number of Secondary School Liaison Officer and School Liaison Officer for primary schools is maintained at 33 and 26 respectively. The total manpower expenditure of these posts in the year 2004-05 is about $16.6 million.

(c) The Police Force reviews its policing work and services from time to time. At present there is no specific plan to reduce or cancel the posts of Liaison Officers.

Ends/Wednesday, November 17, 2004

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