Speech by Mrs Carrie Lam, DSW
At the 10th Anniversary of the Bachelor of Social Work Programme
on 2 June 2001

 

Professor Y S Wong, Professor Colby, Professor Ng, Ladies and Gentlemen,

  1. It is a pleasure to be given this opportunity to attend the Opening Ceremony of the 10th Anniversary of the City University's Bachelor of Social Work Programme.  Incidentally, I am into my 10th month as the Director of Social Welfare in the HKSAR Government.  It is indeed not quite appropriate for a 10-month old Director to address a distinguished audience comprising teaching staff, alumni and students associated with a 10-year old well established social work training programme.  But I do treasure very much this afternoon's occasion and would like to share with you some fresh insights into the role of social welfare in a free economy and capitalist society like Hong Kong that I have picked so far.  I lay emphasis on the "freshness" of those insights because for those who know me, this job of overseeing the Government's welfare portfolio was preceded by one that looks after the money side of the Government's business, including worries at times about an exponential growth in welfare expenditure.  But before I go on to deliver the rest of my speech, I would like to tell you at the outset that this transition from a Treasury official to a Welfare chief has been remarkably smooth; and I attribute this to the fact that no matter whether one is in the frontline of livelihood issues or in the back office resourcing the welfare portfolio, we share one common goal, and that is, to make the best use of community resources to help the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.

  2. Hong Kong prides itself on caring for and supporting those least able to take care of themselves.  The Government has special social responsibilities, in particular towards the disadvantaged, the disabled and the vulnerable.  This priority is demonstrated by the fact that exactly  half of our recurrent public expenditure is devoted to health, social welfare and education.  This is made up of 21.7% for education, 14.5% for health and 13.8% for social welfare.  Of these three main areas of spending, some people tend to classify health and education as positive spending, as a form of investment that enables our citizens to contribute to economic growth and prosperity; whereas welfare is negative spending, that drains the community's resources and tends to create dependence.  Such a classification is clearly over-simplified, if not totally misconstrued.

  3. Our guiding principle in developing welfare services is to build a caring community with self-sufficiency, dignity, harmony and happiness.  Social welfare forms an important component in the Government's responsibility for social development as enunciated recently by the Chief Executive in his 2000 Policy Address, namely -

    (a)     to create an environment where participation and fair competition are open to all;

    (b)     to put in place a well-resourced basic safety net to look after the physical and psychological well being of the elderly, the infirm and the disabled;

    (c)     to assist the disadvantaged, the poor and the unemployed with an emphasis on enhancing, not impeding, their will to be self-reliant; and

    (d)     to encourage those in our society with sufficient means to show their concern for the community by organising, participating in, or supporting different kinds of voluntary work.

  4. It is with this philosophy in mind and a budget strategy to shoulder special responsibilities towards the disadvantaged that social welfare has grown significantly over the last decade.  In the ten-year period from 1992-93 to 2001-02, total recurrent expenditure on social welfare increased from $7.6 billion to $30 billion.  As a result, welfare's share of total recurrent public expenditure increased from 8.3% to 13.8%.  Of the estimated expenditure of $30 billion for 2001-02, about two-thirds or $21 billion will be spent on the social security schemes providing financial support to those in need.  The remaining $9 billion is spent on a wide range of support services on Family and Child Welfare, Elderly Services, Rehabilitation, Medical Social Services, Services for Offenders, Community Development and Young People.  These direct services are provided by SWD and 183 Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) under Government subventions.  Estimated total recurrent subventions to NGOs in 2001-02 amounts to $7.2 billion.  Departmental expenditure accounts for the remaining $2 billion in the social welfare budget.

  5. Let me just illustrate to you how much we are doing for the needy with a $30 billion welfare budget -

    Ÿ       a total of some 230,000 families are now supported under the means-tested non-contributory Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme.  Of these, 75% are the aged and disabled while the rest are the unemployed (10%), single parents (11%) and low earnings families (4%);

    Ÿ       another 550,000 people are receiving old age allowance and disability allowance because of their age and disabilities on a non-means tested basis other than a simple income declaration for those receiving old age allowance between 65 and 69;

    Ÿ       some 23,500 frail elders are in heavily subsidised residential care provided through subvented homes or private homes under the Bought Place Scheme.  By the end of this financial year, an additional 2,500 places will be provided.  Another 30,000 needy elders are receiving home care and meal services delivered to their home;

    Ÿ       an extensive network of 65 family services centres together with five specialised Family and Child Protection Services Unit are rendering services to families in trouble and family members being abused.  For the year 2000, while reported child abuse cases have stabilised, with 500 newly registered cases as compared to 575 in the preceding year, we have seen an upsurge of 46% in domestic violence, with over 2,200 newly registered battered spouse cases;

    Ÿ       over 8,000 people with physical or mental disabilities are being looked after in residential care.  Another 16,000 are receiving day care in pre-school setting, early education and training centres, sheltered workshops and supported employment;

    Ÿ       about 10,000 people who have committed minor offences are placed under SWD's supervision on probation or community services orders.  The Department also runs residential boys and girls homes for young people with behavioural problems;

    Ÿ       all the 456 secondary schools in Hong Kong are each provided with one school-based social worker.  They are in turn supported by a network of children and youth centres, integrated teams and outreaching social workers to address the needs of young people; and

    Ÿ       to ensure that community support services are made known to all those in need, we are running extensive outreaching support teams and volunteer programmes through our 13 District Social Work Offices.

  6. But $30 billion are a significant share of public resources.  From my previous job, I am acutely aware that the spending cake is finite. It is therefore my duty to ensure the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of the welfare expenditure.  We need new skills, new mindset and new approaches to deliver welfare services but the core values of compassion for the vulnerable, a passion to help those least able to help themselves and an advocacy to champion for the under-privileged must remain.  With this in mind, let me now turn to what Professor Ng has asked me to do today, that is, to share with you my views and perhaps society's expectations on today's social workers.

  7. First, we must keep on reminding ourselves that we are in the field of human services and our services must be client-centred.  In the past decade, partly in response to a rapidly expanding social welfare infrastructure, our focus tended to shift from the user to the provider.  Our present services are therefore rather fragmented and compartmentalised; in a way this is administratively neat and tidy for the funder and provider.  But what about the user?   For example, our elders in the community have to approach different centres like Social Centres, Multi-Service Centres, Day Care Centres, very often run by different agencies, for different services.   A young kid who needs professional help may be seeing different workers from different agencies at the school, centre or street setting.  It is high time to reverse this trend and I am pleased to note that "integration" is now accepted as the way forward in both elderly and youth services.  In new population growth areas such as Tung Chung, we are going a step further to provide integrated services for the whole family.  Under this mode, one single agency will be invited to operate day nursery, youth service, family service and elderly service under one roof.
  8. Secondly, today's administration must try to shorten the distance between the point where service is delivered and the other end where decisions are made.  This is particularly important in welfare services that exist to provide prompt assistance to the needy.  To achieve this objective, today's social workers have to have skills in organisational management and information technology.   On organisational management, you will have heard about the proposed restructuring of SWD that will lead to elimination of our existing Regional Offices and the organisational review of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service recently completed by a Task Group led by the Hon. Rosanna Wong.  On the use of IT, SWD has mapped out a strategy for the entire welfare sector and set up a Joint Committee on IT to take forward the initiatives.  One of these is to provide broadband Internet access to all NGOs to improve on communication between SWD and NGOs and within the agency itself.

  9. Thirdly, we should focus on what we are getting rather than what we are paying.  An outcome-focused and result-oriented approach in managing welfare services has been adopted for both departmental and subvented services.  We have successfully put in place a new subvention system, what we call the Lump Sum Grant, that will give NGOs the necessary flexibility in resource deployment.  This new subvention mode which had once raised serious concerns is now the mainstream subvention system in the welfare sector, practised by 127 NGOs who together account for over 90% of welfare subventions.  Resource management skills are therefore needed by today's social workers so as to make full use of the flexibility under the LSG environment.  As a corollary, social workers should also embrace concepts of performance standards and service evaluation and in this area, I look to the tertiary sector for support and collaboration in social research to support evidence-based planning.  I pay tribute to Dr Wing Lo and Dr Wong Hung of the City University who are our excellent research partners.

  10. Fourthly I believe that open and fair competition in a regulated environment which has made Hong Kong tick will work equally well in social welfare.  The system of distributing new welfare service units to NGOs in a conventional manner is something of the past.  NGOs that are interested to operate new welfare services must now go through a vigorous quality-based competition based on service specifications, innovation and value-added features.  So another set of skills that today's social workers must possess are the ability to innovate and to write good service proposals.

  11. Finally, there is a general consensus within the community that we do not wish to see Hong Kong become a welfare state relying on heavy taxes, that there is a limit to how much the Government can spend and that the virtues of self-reliance, family cohesion and community support should be preserved.  To this end, I believe that all of us in the welfare sector, and social workers in particular, have to ensure that we are promoting, not impeding, the individuals' will and capacity to stand on their own feet.  The social work professionalism must not be relegated to the very rudimentary role of helping people to get welfare benefits.  Rather, we should help the disadvantaged to build up self-confidence, self-esteem and finally to help people to help themselves, and then help others.  I have no doubt that these important principles are enshrined in the training of social workers.  But unfortunately this profession has sometimes been exploited and this leads to misunderstanding to what actually do social workers do.  Last Sunday, I wa s passing through Jordan Road after a function and my attention was caught by a colourful sea of banners outside the premises of a private residential home for the elderly on the second floor of a commercial building.  A couple of those banners advertised a special promotion rate of $1,998 per month for admission to the Home while another couple of banners read "social workers will apply for CSSA for your" As the licensing authority of residential care homes for the elderly, SWD will conduct vigorous urprise inspections to ensure safe and proper care of the residents; but I am afraid we can do little for the profession unless there is something along the lines of an Undesirable Medical Advertisements Ordinance to protect the social work profession!

  12. I thank the Department of Applied Social Studies again for inviting me to come here to celebrate with you the 10th Anniversary of the Bachelor of Social Work Programme.  I am sure the Department will grow from strength to strength under Professor Ng and I look forward to more collaboraton between the Department and SWD in enhancing the well-being of the needy and developing a more caring community.

  13. Thank you.