A People-oriented Budget
4 March 2018
This year’s Budget is a pragmatic and proactive one packed with measures designed to bring relief and benefits to different strata of the community. Among them, education, healthcare and social welfare, which are areas closely related to people’s livelihood, are “top priorities” of the Government.
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In the coming year (2018-19), the recurrent expenditure budgeted for education, social welfare and healthcare totals over $230 billion, accounting for nearly 60% of government recurrent expenditure. This is illustrative of a government that focuses on people and attaches importance to people’s livelihood.
The Government views people as valuable assets. This “people-oriented” Budget has notably given much thought to children, youngsters, education and talent nurturing. The current-term Government, upon taking office, has pledged to increase recurrent expenditure on education by $5 billion, of which $3.6 billion has been approved by the Legislative Council. The Budget commits an additional recurrent expenditure of $2 billion to achieve quality education. An extra $7.8 billion non-recurrent expenditure is also proposed by the Financial Secretary to implement numerous measures for enhancing education quality.
To support the disadvantaged and care for the young, the Government will allocate additional annual provision to strengthen the manpower of the Social Welfare Department and non-governmental organisations to provide more support for children and enhance residential child care services. Also, five centres for separated or divorced families will be set up to enable early identification and intervention for families at risk.
It is sad to see the child abuse cases that happened earlier. The Government is mindful of the physical and psychological development of children. We will launch a three-year pilot scheme to provide social work services in phases for about 150 000 children and their families in all aided child care centres, kindergartens and kindergarten-cum-child care centres, and will improve the provision of school social workers in special schools. Moreover, from the 2018/19 school year onwards, more resources will be provided for public sector primary schools to strengthen and enhance their social work and counselling services, with a view to ultimately achieving the target of “one school social worker for each school”.
The Budget will also provide funding for various initiatives under the portfolios of three committees to be chaired by me, namely the Children Commission, the Youth Development Commission and the Human Resources Planning Commission. Through holistic and structured planning for the needs of children and youngsters, these commissions will deal with the difficulties children face as they grow up, boost young people’s upward mobility and enhance the human capital of Hong Kong.
Young people are our future. The Budget has set aside $1 billion to support the work of the Youth Development Commission, including measures to address young people’s concerns about education, career pursuit, home ownership, public policy discussion and debate and participation in politics.
The Pilot Member Self-recommendation Scheme for Youth has reached the final stage of the interview process. Among the 1 179 applicants, 522 have indicated interest to join the Youth Development Commission. I went to the interview venue the other day to show support for the candidates. The young people, arriving punctually and dressed smartly for the discussion session, impressed me as admirably earnest and well-prepared. Above all, their enthusiasm to share their views with the Government and serve the community is commendable.
During the meeting, I invited the applicants to authorise the Home Affairs Bureau to enter their names in the Central Personality Index, a database through which bureaux and departments can access their information when considering prospective candidates for appointment to advisory and statutory bodies. I am glad that nearly 90% of the interviewees have given their consent. The percentage of young people in the database has leaped to about 12% as a result, compared to 6.5% before the launch of the self-recommendation scheme. What a good harvest!
With full support from the Budget in funding, the Youth Development Commission will be up and running soon. Besides, the Budget has also attended to the needs of disadvantaged youth. Recurrent subvention will be provided for non-governmental organisations to set up cyber youth support teams to reach out to high-risk or hidden youth to allow for early intervention and support. The District Support Scheme for Children and Youth Development will also be enhanced with a higher upper limit for cash assistance and larger quotas for disadvantaged children and youth.
Meanwhile, the Human Resources Planning Commission, tasked with devising policies of talent nurturing and promoting upward mobility, is expected to commence operation in the second quarter of the year. To further develop human capital and encourage the pursuit of self-enhancement, the Budget has set aside an additional injection of $8.5 billion into the Continuing Education Fund for raising the upper age limit for applicants to 70 and the subsidy ceiling to $20,000 per applicant, benefitting an estimated 610 000 people. The Pilot Training and Support Scheme will also be regularised to improve the quality of local employees.
There are about 250 000 ethnic minorities in Hong Kong who regard the city as their home. We have actively encouraged and helped them to integrate into the local community and work together for Hong Kong’s long-term development. Yet, some of them are still facing a lot of difficulties in adapting and integrating into society owing to language barriers and cultural differences. To enhance collaboration within the Government on support for ethnic minorities, I will set up and chair a steering committee to co-ordinate, review and monitor work in this area. The Budget has earmarked $500 million to support the steering committee for the purpose.
I look forward to the early passage of the Budget’s Appropriation Bill at the Legislative Council so that these measures can be implemented as soon as possible to benefit the community and propel Hong Kong forward.
