Introduction

Today I am not going to give details of the workings of the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA), but I would focus on a particular aspect that I am interested in, namely, a more integrated approach to CSSA. In the past, CSSA has always been viewed as the special preserve of the social work sector. Obviously our social security system (welfare system in American terms) is dealing with the most vulnerable part of our society, the lower part of the socioeconomic pile. It is natural that the social work way of looking at things should have an important part to play. Our welfare system has literally developed over the recent past from a network of feeding stations handing out rice to the destitute into a really quite complicated cash transfer system. If you are familiar with the British Supplementary Benefits System, you will be able to understand our system quite easily. For obvious historical reasons, our CSSA system is to some extent derived from the British system and also has resemblances with other systems in the same "family": Australia, Canada, New Zealand and to a somewhat lesser extent, the American welfare system. Consequently, recent developments in these systems, debates about welfare dependency etc. have also been of interest and relevance to Hong Kong.

I am delighted to be here today for many reasons but an important reason is that this Symposium reflects a most welcome innovation in looking at social security issues in a context slightly different from that in which they are usually considered, i.e. as a social service examined through the perspective only of social workers.

It would be wrong, of course, to deny the very valid social work interest in our social security schemes. The CSSA is the primary form of monetary assistance to the most financially vulnerable members of the community. It thus has a fundamental role to play in any strategy of poverty alleviation. Financial vulnerability is often accompanied by a multiplicity of other problems which require professional intervention by social workers. As we deal face-to-face with social security applicants and recipients, we should constantly bear in mind relevant social work values, particularly empathy to those who are going through a tough time in their lives.

Increase in CSSA Spending

Nonetheless, one might suggest that over the recent past the social welfare viewpoint has become almost a victim of its own success when it comes to social security. The entirely understandable call that social security recipients should not be excluded from the increasing affluence of our community meant that between 1992/93 and 1998/99 CSSA standard rates increased in real terms by at least 20 percent and at the upper end by more than 100 percent. The expenditure on CSSA increased from HK2.4 billion in 1993/94 to over HK13 billion in 1998/99 which represented a four-fold increase in five years. During the early 1990s CSSA expenditure accounted for just 2 percent of Government recurrent expenditure but by 1998/99 that figure was 7.8 percent. Such phenomena are bound to attract the attention of people like those in today's distinguished gathering, i.e. the economists and, indeed, rates of increase like those I have just quoted are bound to raise questions about the long-term affordability of the scheme especially during times of economic recession.

So, we have already recognized that economists with an overall interest in Government's fiscal and expenditure position as a group are now likely to take an interest in CSSA. But there are others too! Another phenomenon that became apparent in the mid-1990s was the steep rise within the CSSA caseload of cases in which the principal applicant was an able-bodied and therefore employable person. Between September 1993 and September 1998 the "unemployed" proportion of the caseload rose steadily from 4 percent to 12 percent and yet this increase did not at all correlate with employment opportunities or the lack of them within the community. For example in 1996/97 the unemployment rate was 2.6 percent while CSSA expenditure increased at a rate of 47.5 percent. In 1997/98, the corresponding figures were 2.5 percent for the unemployment rate and 32.5 percent for the rate of increase in CSSA expenditure. Accordingly, we began to have concerns about the possible emergence of a dependency culture.

Support for self-reliance

As we studied this phenomenon we began to understand that we needed to integrate our thinking more closely with that of colleagues in the Labour Department, Employees Retraining Board and Education and Manpower Bureau. Discussions with them were an important contribution to the new policy strategies outlined in the report Support for Self-reliance published in December 1998. The basic policy aim was now stated as being to assist the employable in our caseload to become self-reliant and gainfully employed. To achieve this, we have adopted a more proactive approach towards unemployed CSSA recipients with social security staff working with them on individualized job search plans and ensuring a better information flow about resources available through other parts of Government. The results have been little short of spectacular: between 1 June 1999 when the scheme was implemented and the end of December 1999 the "unemployed" component of the CSSA caseload registered a 13 percent drop.

To maintain the momentum, however, we have to deepen and broaden this integrated approach. An important next step will be to strengthen our relationships with non-governmental organizations. We would like to work more closely in partnership with them on strategies to help move those of our CSSA recipients with very entrenched problems back into the work force. These entrenched problems may be no more than simply those which arise from being a long-term CSSA recipient. In common with other developed social security systems we have found that a longer period of CSSA dependency correlates with difficulty in leaving the system.

Ideally, we would also like to find ways and means to reach out to the business community and to bring them into a partnership to mobilize the human capital that our recipients represent. It seems inherently illogical that while our unemployed caseload remains at some 28,000, Hong Kong employers are asking the Labour Department for permission to bring in more than 1,000 workers to undertake simple, low skill jobs. More ambitiously, we need to work together, Government and the community, to find better ways and means not just to mobilize unemployed CSSA recipients but to invest in them so that their working capacity can be enriched and the barriers that currently keep them from fully participating in the economic life of society be overcome.

Investment in Human Capital

So, we have identified social work and economics broadly as two academic disciplines likely to have a very strong interest in the CSSA. It would be nice if there was some sort of middle ground in which these two disciplines met. The Second Asian Regional Conference on Social Security was held in Hong Kong this January. The keynote speaker, Professor James Midgley of the University of Berkeley in California is Dean of the social work school but an important theme in his speech was that when it came to the study of social security, economic realities can no longer be ignored. I heard other participants at the conference expressing their appreciation of Professor Nelson Chow's attitude when he sounded the same note in his approach to the Mandatory Provident Fund. The challenge that Professor Midgley left us with was to try and think of social security as "investment in people", or in "human capital" if you like a more "scientific" and less "emotional" term. Here, it seems to me there may be particularly fruitful areas for the benefits of a more integrated approach as we build on Support for Self-reliance and, for example, try to mobilize insights from the field of labour economics.

Managing CSSA

Finally, let me briefly mention one more academic discipline which currently seems to take little interest in social security but perhaps could do so with benefit and that is the field of management studies. Just as formerly it sometimes seemed to be assumed that with the right degree of willingness on the part of Government almost unlimited amounts of money could be made available for social security, I feel that nowadays the complexity of managing a social security system is sometimes under-estimated. Hong Kong's social security system already, of course, makes use of information technology and will do so much more from this October when we will be adopting a fully on-line approach. It is a constant management challenge for us to operate systems which are efficient and can be mastered by staff without undue difficulty and to support staff to find the right point of balance between stringent assessment of eligibility for benefits and understanding of the vulnerabilities of the customers that they serve.

Experience here and, even more so, looking at what has happened in some overseas social security systems convinces us that a simple yet efficient system is absolutely vital in the best interests of our needy customers as well as the overall good of Government financial management. This is a dimension to which, I sometimes feel, insufficient attention is paid when innovative social security proposals are put forward.

Concluding Remark

At symposia or conferences, it is usually the role of the Government representative to be lectured at as well as to give a lecture. That is something that is entirely right and proper since we need constant input from a variety of sources to allow us, as far as possible, to get our programmes on the right track and to keep them there. I am therefore looking forward to taking away from today's programme a wealth of insights and, ideally, seeing the foundations laid for a whole range of more fruitful, integrated co-operation with various sectors and viewpoints within the community.

By Rachel Cartland