-6met by public funds” with the aim of relieving the destitute.
It proposed
substituting cash grants on a means-tested basis for assistance in kind. It is of
particular present relevance that it also proposed that the residence requirement
be reduced to one year:
“The second proposal is that the present criterion of a minimum period of five years’
residence in the Colony should be reduced to one year, with the discretion of the
Director of Social Welfare to pay assistance to people who have not fulfilled this
condition, if, in their particular circumstances, he considers it necessary having regard
for other available sources of aid. The residential criterion was established in 1948 at
10 years and reduced in 1959 to 5 years. The thinking behind the residential
qualification was that public assistance should not be made so freely available as to
attract a mass influx of new immigrants from China into the Colony. As a result,
voluntary agencies, including some which are subvented by Government, have
necessarily had to assume the responsibility for assisting persons who do not have this
residential qualification.
The situation regarding immigration has changed
considerably in recent years and it is believed that this residential qualification could
safely be reduced to one year, although for reasons associated with our external
relations it would be possibly unwise at the present time to remove it entirely.”13
15.
As pointed out by Ms Polly Choy Bo Chun14 on the Government’s
behalf, the Governor-in-Council endorsed those recommendations on 17
March 1970 and the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee approved the
necessary funding on 17 June 1970. The system then put in place developed
into the present CSSA scheme which was introduced in its present form with
effect from 1 July 1993.
16.
From 1970 onwards, one year’s residence was the residential
condition of eligibility for the benefit. It was only on 1 January 2004 that the
new requirement was adopted, resulting in Madam Kong having to wait seven
years before qualifying for CSSA. I shall return later to examine the terms upon
which the seven-year requirement was introduced and the Government’s
justification for its introduction.
13
Exco Memo, 11 March 1970, §7.
14
Principal Assistant Secretary for Labour and Welfare (Welfare) 4 of the Labour and
Welfare Bureau, Affirmation 19 January 2011 (“Ms Choy’s Affirmation”), §12.