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The Permanent Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Paul Tang, said that the Government had always supported the social work profession by providing the infrastructures and resources required to enable social workers to maximise their contribution to society.
Speaking at the 45th Anniversary Symposium of the Department of Social Work of the Chinese University of Hong Kong today (April 18), Mr Tang said the Government was fully committed to nurturing professionalism in social work.
He said that the Government took measures to ensure that the social workers were well qualified and of high professional standards by putting in place a compulsory registration and disciplinary mechanism and according the term "social worker" with special legal status.
"We are also aware that our social workers need resources to deliver their services. That is why the past 10 years have seen unprecedented growth of government investment in social welfare. This financial year, our expenditure on welfare services stands at $11.6 billion, 16% more than last year."
"We have already provided around $2.6 billion one-off resources for NGOs under the Lump Sum Grant Subvention System to reinforce their human resource management initiatives. Recently, we also decided to give a special recurrent funding of $200 million to NGOs to strengthen their administrative support," he said.
Mr Tang said that given the additional resources, NGOs would be in a better position to adapt to the changing needs of society.
Ends/Friday, April 18, 2008
Issued at HKT 11:10
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