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The Director of Social Welfare, Mr Stephen Fisher, announced a series of interim/facilitating measures at a meeting of the Lump Sum Grant (LSG) Steering Committee today (December 31) to help enhance the quality of welfare services.
The non-official members of the steering committee had earlier put forward three proposals requesting the Government to conduct a comprehensive review of the LSG subvention system; to increase recurrent subventions baseline allocation; and to implement interim measures to assist subvented organisations before the increase of recurrent subventions.
Taking a positive view of the proposals, Mr Fisher said the Government had already announced on December 21 an independent review committee of four to five independent members to be formed to aim for a comprehensive and objective review on the LSG subvention system, including the complaint handling mechanism.
He said the Government, after carefully considering the proposals by the welfare sector, had proposed the following interim/facilitating measures:
1. Starting from January 1, 2008, all new services to be implemented by subvented organisations will not be subject to the effect of Enhanced Productivity Programme (EPP) and Efficiency Savings (ES);
2. New services implemented since April 2000 with personal emolument (PE) of some grades set below the mid-point will be adjusted upward to the mid-point salary starting from April 1, 2008;
3. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) will apply for a one-off grant of $200 million from the Lotteries Fund Advisory Committee for enhancing the service quality of subvented organisations; and
4. Individual subvented organisations that have financial difficulties in meeting the requirement beginning 2008-09 for their PE portion to come down by 2% each year to the benchmark salary level can apply for a deferment of the requirement from SWD.
Mr Fisher said he hoped the implementation of these measures would help the subvented organisations in meeting their short term commitments.
Regarding the welfare sectorˇ¦s proposal to increase recurrent subventions baseline allocation in the long run, Mr Fisher said the Government was still considering its proposal.
Ends/Monday, December 31, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:52
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