The Social Welfare Department wrote to various subvented social service organizations on Wednesday (8th), stating that it will implement the cost-cutting plan announced in the budget in the next financial year, except for unavoidable items, including the CSSA system and longevity allowance. , Non-governmental social welfare organizations (NGOs) under the SWD that accept block grants or traditional funding models will reduce their recurrent expenditure funding by 1% in 2022/23.
The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Law Chi-kwong, said that as spending cuts are implemented by the entire government, and expenditures such as CSSA are social welfare expenditures, they will not be affected. At the same time, he understands the challenges faced by social service agencies and calls on the industry to work together to effectively adapt. This is a reduction in resources.
The recipient is the ultimate victim
In terms of institutional reserve figures alone, a 1% reduction in funding may not have much impact in the short term. However, the staff of social welfare agencies pointed out that individual agencies have more than one case where the cumulative reserve has been settled to "zero" in recent years. , And the Hong Kong Council of Social Service also pointed out that many NGOs have begun to plan for service integration in the coming year. Large and medium-sized NGOs do not reduce the treatment of frontline staff as the principle, but small NGOs need to cut some projects and manpower.
The operation of this resource reduction can be described as the forest but the tree. The Secretary encourages social welfare organizations to adapt to the changes, but has never mentioned the impact on the current social welfare organizations to support recipients.
Many social welfare organizations can only start to compensate for the reduced amount of funding by reducing expenditure. If they do not respond by saving manpower, they may need to reduce the number of service audiences or reduce the quality of services provided, but the two will also respond accordingly. The recipient constitutes a negative impact.
It can be seen that cutting funding will not help society after all, and the authorities should consider other ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.
In 2001, the government introduced the Lump Sum Grant Subsidy System. Many organizations faced the pressure of salary cuts and drawdowns. They needed to explore different resources and methods to maintain their services. The operation of social enterprises became one of the ways out.
(Information Picture/Photo by Zhang Haowei)
Cutting resources will not help solve the root cause
The bureau now stated that the recurrent expenditure on social welfare has increased by 62% from RMB 65.3 billion in 2017-18 to RMB 105.7 billion in the budget for 2021/22, accounting for approximately 20% of the overall public expenditure. Welfare expenditures should enter a consolidation period, focusing on implementing various improvement measures to maintain the proper use of resources.
But precisely because the bureau relied mainly on the market to solve problems in the past, the cut in funding will only have a negative impact on the development of Hong Kong's social welfare.
It is an indisputable fact that social welfare services have been in short supply for a long time, and there are still a large number of different types of social welfare problems in the society.
Taking services for the elderly as an example, there is a serious shortage of residential care and attention places. As of September 30, 2021, there are still 28,434 elderly people waiting for care and attention places. The average waiting time in subsidized or contract residential care homes is Up to 41 months.
Further reduction of resources will actually only worsen the above phenomenon. Instead, the government should consider how to allocate resources appropriately to promote "ageing at home."
In addition to dealing with the problem itself, the bureau can also set more conditions for receiving appropriations, thereby controlling the proportion of remuneration in social welfare organizations.
Under the current lump-sum funding system, social welfare organizations lack standards for the payment of salaries, which can easily lead to the phenomenon of "fat on top and thin on bottom".
It can be seen from the latest annual financial report of non-governmental organizations and the review report on the salary of the top three-level staff of the Social Welfare Department that the annual salary of the top staff of some social welfare organizations is more than 3 million, which is in line with the salary level of the assistant director of the Social Welfare Department. Annual salary accounts for more than 10% of his overall salary expenditure.
If the relevant resources can be used to increase the number of front-line staff, it will certainly be more helpful to help those in need in society.
Can annuities really deal with an aging population?
The role of social welfare funding is to increase income and reduce expenditure, and the home care policy must also be prudent to meet the non-material needs of the elderly