Social welfare advocates have put forward a series of suggestions aimed at improving the welfare system, in the hope of moving the government to address strategic planning on pressing social issues. 

Experts who talked to China Daily after Wednesday's budget speech delivered by Financial Secretary John Tsang expressed disappointment over the lack of long term planning evidenced in the speech. Instead there were more one-off measures. An extra month of Comprehensive Social Security Allowance, for example, has been distributed for the past four years. "The allowance's recipients are now expecting to get double cheques every year, and do some shopping this time every year. The government should consider putting this into recurrent expenditures," said Nelson Chow Wing-sun, a professor in social work and social administration from the University of Hong Kong. 

But that is just a small part of an overall review and readjustment of the scheme, Chow noted. The 440,000 allowance recipients are getting only a straight-jacket HK$1,990 per month, and HK$2,828 for elders. The amount he noted has been rising very slowly. 

Chua Hoi-wai, business director in policy advocacy from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, said the government should also think of the poor-but-not-too-poor working class. He said the current Work Incentive Transport Subsidy Scheme which targets the working poor, should be evolved into a full-blown subsidy scheme for low-income families. 

An exhaustive scheme, Chua said, should delineate different situation of the households and offer different amounts of subsidy instead of a one-size-fits-all method. Calculations may factor in whether the family is living in a housing estate, and how many elders and children there are to take care of. 

Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, a former social welfare lawmaker, said the government should have the vision to create more jobs from various sectors, rather than relying on a few mainstay trades. Chow complained that though the government's ambition to promote and bolster Hong Kong's six priority industries may be a good start, the plans have all seemed to end up as just talk without any solid or far-reaching planning. 

Wong Hung, a professor in social and poverty policy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the government should also review the mechanism for operating housing estates, such as not immediately kicking out tenants who cannot afford rents for a long period. 

Both Chow and Chua are especially concerned about the elderly issue. Chua pinpointed there were around 7,000 elders who died while awaiting approval for residential care services, while only 3,000 made it in the past four years. There are still 26,000 elders on the waiting list. The government, however, is planning only to build another 2,600 places between now and 2015. 

"The government is too conservative in fiscal hoarding. One-off sweeteners in the past years have amounted to around HK$200 billion. Coupled with the huge surplus every year, the government should be capable to invest in long-term planning," Chua said, adding that the government should not only plan to build more care centers, but also promise an average waiting time, before actually making investment and implementation. 

Chua also noted that in the 1992 policy address, the colonial government announced a five year plan to increase the number of residential care centers. Although it eventually took seven years to achieve the goal, it ended up helping hundreds of thousands of people. 

The government has not made any in-depth study on elderly issues since 1994, when it took a year for various government departments and stake holders to hammer out a full report on the issue, according to Chow. 

andrea@chinadailyhk.com