''That means you would probably be able to get $2,000 if you qualify for all the supplementary allowances going, including old age allowance, rent subsidy, special needs allowance, higher old age allowance and all the other payments,'' he said.

''Of course, Mr Macleod is right to say fewer than one per cent of public assistance recipients only get the basic rate. What most people don't realise is everyone who has been a recipient for one year automatically qualifies for a long-term supplement of around $1,000.'' Dr Mok said the $1,000 was a once-a-year payment and worked out at roughly $83 a month. It was meant for replacement of items like tables and chairs and not for food and daily consumption.

''I would like to suggest that the Financial Secretary and the Social Welfare Department stop using these payments and allowances in their calculations. It makes the figures they come up with meaningless,'' he said.

Another sore point with Dr Mok was the Government's assertion that anyone in need could apply for a rent allowance. The maximum rent allowance was $500, just enough if an elderly single person was lucky enough to find accommodation in a public housing estate.

The cheapest possible room in the private sector amounted to $1,000, meaning old people who fell into that category were forced to dig into the money meant for food and clothing and other basic needs to help pay for a roof over their heads, he said.

The public assistance index provided by the Government showed that 75 per cent of the basic rate went on food. Given the new rate of $950, old people would be confined to just under $23 a day for food.

This represented half the figure set aside by the Hospital Authority for daily meals for patients.

Mrs Victoria Kwok Yuen Wai-yee, co-ordinator of elderly services for the Salvation Army, agreed that other supplements were supposed to meet extra needs.

''The misunderstanding has always been the practice of using what should be for extra needs to meet basic needs. The supplementaries should be for just that - additional needs,'' she said.

''The old age allowance, rent supplement and the like are meant to meet extra expenses and not to be lumped together with the basic rate.

''When you think about $2,000 on its own for a single person it may seem a lot, but when everything comes out of it, it shrinks dramatically,'' she said.

Mrs Kwok said most people who worked in elderly services wanted social security payments to be separate from social welfare.

Mr Hui Yin-fat, the welfare representative in the Legislative Council, praised Mr Macleod for ''boosting the Government's public relations image'' by having the courage to tackle payments to special hardship cases like victims of pneumoconiosis.