Hong Kong home affairs chief defends community care units after report suggests teams inflated numbers
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s home affairs minister has said residents were eager to support the work of district-level community care teams, after a report suggested some teams sought to bolster numbers by inviting event participants to pose as volunteers for group photos.
Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak also said on Friday that the government would release care teams’ work reports after their two-year service period came to an end later this year. Her remarks came after a student publication’s requests to access such reports were rejected on multiple occasions.
A 12-minute-long documentary produced by journalism students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) earlier this week showed Southern and Tsuen Wan district offices refusing to provide care teams’ finance and performance reports and rejecting student reporters’ interview requests.
The student reporters attended a Tsuen Wan District Council general meeting to put questions to district officer Billy Au. When asked why such reports were not disclosed, Au said: “documents that are open to the public are open to the public; documents that are not open to the public are not open to the public.”
Mak on Friday defended the non-disclosure, saying it was “appropriate” to provide such information after the care teams completed their service period.
“After the two-year service period, we will release the achievements of the care teams, including their performance index and results, in an appropriate manner,” she told reporters in Cantonese after an event.
She also denied that teams bolstered numbers by asking participants of care team events to put on volunteer vests, saying that was how residents showed their support to the care teams.
“Each care team has only eight to 12 members, so sometimes they need to recruit volunteers in the community,” she said. “Actually many residents have been keen to support the care teams.”
“For identification, some will wear badges or some will put on vests. That’s exactly what we hope to do, to encourage event participants to become volunteers alongside the care teams,” Mak added.
She said the care teams comprised mostly volunteers who provided community services outside work and family, and urged residents to support their work.
She also urged the media to report on the care teams so that residents could be made aware of their services.
The district-level community care teams were introduced in 2022 to support authorities’ district work and 452 teams were established last year.
According to the Home Affairs Department, care teams are required to make regular visits to elderly people and other residents in need, respond to emergencies such as extreme weather events, and promote national security in communities.
Currently, each team receives government subsidies of around HK$800,000 to HK$1.2 million for their two-year term.
The government said last October that the subsidies will be increased by 50 per cent in their next term of service. That could amount to HK$678 million of government expenditure for all 452 teams every two years.
The CUHK student report has sparked debate regarding the transparency of care teams’ operations. After it was released, Clarence Leung, the undersecretary for Home and Youth Affairs, said “some reports” had made “sweeping generalisations” about their work.
Veteran journalist Sum Wan-wah, a journalism lecturer that supervised the CUHK student report, defended his students, saying they had carried out the “basic work” of the press.
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