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The Government has set a clear vision and strategic goals for constantly enhancing and developing the welfare system in Hong Kong to keep abreast of community needs and aspirations.
Speaking on the welfare strategies of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government at a luncheon of the Foundation Forum 2011 today (June 3), the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said that investment in welfare had been substantial and constantly on an upward trend.
"Recurrent expenditure on social welfare in 2011-12 will rise by 11%, representing the largest increase among all policy areas. An additional $4.2 billion will be allocated to social welfare spending, taking the total to $42.2 billion or 17.4% of the Government's total recurrent expenditure, just second to education.
"This compares with the figure of $28.6 billion (or up by 47.6%) in 2001-02 and $20 billion (or up by 111%) in 1997-98. Given that we have one of the lowest and simplest tax regimes in the developed world, this testifies to the importance and priority that the Government attaches to social welfare," Mr Cheung said.
"Fiscal commitment apart, our welfare system has evolved over the years to meet the changing needs and aspirations of our population and social landscape," Mr Cheung added.
He pointed out that one significant change since the mid-1990s was the adoption of a holistic and integrated approach in services delivery.
"The beauty of this one-stop service mode lies in the increased flexibility of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to deploy resources and provide services in a more effective and timely manner. Services are provided in a more holistic, convenient and easily accessible way. This has fundamentally transformed the delivery of our mainstream services, especially for the family and youth," he added.
Currently, there are 61 Integrated Family Services Centres and 137 Integrated Children and Youth Services Centres across the territory. Such a one-stop-shop approach has been further extended in the setting up of 16 District Support Centres for Persons with Disabilities since January 2009.
Mr Cheung noted that the Government had broken new ground in recent years in encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration to provide tailor-made support for different target audiences. Two notable examples are the Integrated Discharge Support Programme for Elderly Patients and the Comprehensive Child Development Service.
"A prudent and evidence-based approach has been adopted through the launch of various pilot schemes before extending those services territory-wide," he said.
To meet the challenges ahead, in particular the problems arising from an ageing population, the Government has developed a clear long-term strategy with the promotion of "ageing in place" set as the policy anchor.
Noting that a successful policy does not materialise in a vacuum, Mr Cheung said the Elderly Commission had launched a consultancy study on how to enhance community care services to better serve our elderly and the findings would be available soon.
Apart from the adoption of new service delivery modes and the mapping out of long-term strategy in an evidence-based and prudent manner, another new direction in recent years is the promotion of tripartite partnership in the provision of welfare services.
"There are many ways for companies and private foundations to engage the welfare sector apart from donations to charitable activities. These include the transfer of knowledge, provision of mentorship and promotion of volunteerism, just to name a few," he said.
He cited the Partnership Fund for the Disadvantaged and the Child Development Fund as some ongoing initiatives which allow volunteerism and tripartite projects to blossom.
He appealed to the Foundation members to mobilise their human and economic assets, leadership skills and social networking to lend impetus to the concept of tripartite partnership.
Ends/Friday, June 3, 2011
Issued at HKT 15:27
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