Funds Boosted For Disadvantaged

Financial Secretary Paul Chan has emphasised the importance of building a caring and sharing society, saying he was saddened to see several child abuse cases in recent months.

To help address the issue, he announced in his Budget Speech today the Government will allocate $504 million from the Lotteries Fund to launch a three-year pilot scheme to provide social work services in phases for 150,000 children and their families in all aided childcare centres and kindergartens.

"From the 2018-19 school year, more resources will be provided for public sector primary schools to encourage them to strengthen and enhance their social work and counselling services according to school-based circumstances, with a view to ultimately achieving the target of 'one school social worker for each school'," Mr Chan said.

The administration will improve the provision of school social workers in special schools and will also strengthen the manpower of the Social Welfare Department's Family & Child Protective Services Units, and the workforce of NGOs supporting the Educational Programme on Stopping Domestic Violence.

The recurrent expenditure involved will amount to $43 million.

The Government will allocate an additional $660 million to improve rehabilitation services, including those for the disabled, mentally handicapped and ex-mentally ill people.

A total of $220 million will be provided to strengthen care for children and disadvantaged youths.

The Government will also earmark $500 million to boost support for ethnic minorities.

For senior citizens, Mr Chan proposed allocating $63 million to provide speech therapy services for elderly service units which will benefit 22,000 seniors.

On scrapping the MPF "offsetting" arrangement, he said the Government will table a proposal as soon as possible which is acceptable to employers and employees.

He added $15 billion will be set aside to tackle the situation.