Hong Kong's largest umbrella social welfare group is becoming cumbersome and inefficient and is at risk of becoming unrepresentative and irrelevant, a new internal review has found.
The report by a three-member working group headed by Executive Councillor Rosanna Wong Yick-ming said urgent reform of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service was needed. Based on an internal survey of staff, other non-governmental organisations and the public, the review recommends streamlining 60 committees within the council, which employs 160 workers.
The council, set up in 1947, must respond more quickly to new and pressing social issues with policy recommendations and improve relations between business and welfare service sectors, the review found. The report, to be released this month, said it should also cancel its employment services and focus on advocacy for some 180 non-governmental organisations which the council represents - 'like a chamber of commerce', a council source said.
'Many companies are interested to have a role in social welfare services but just do not know how to get involved. We should help them understand each other more,' the source said. 'We should have a clearer identity - we can't be a union on one hand but a service provider on the other. But none of the staff will be asked to leave. They will be relocated.'
Dr Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's department of applied social studies, said it was time for the council to reform. 'The council has been in decline during the past few years in terms of its role in leading the sector and its internal administration structure.'
He said a new lump-sum funding system which allowed welfare agencies to negotiate individually with the Government had also helped to minimise the council's previous representative role in the sector.
