Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ12: Disability allowance
Following is a question by the Hon Abraham Shek and a written reply by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council
today (November 9):
Question :
It has been reported that 71 families with blind and visually impaired children,
who had been overpaid the disability allowance as they had not reported their
children's admission to special boarding school, have been asked to return the
overpaid allowance. In one case, the parents of a visually impaired child had
been overpaid $160,000 in the past 12 years, and were asked to return that
amount by a one-off payment or installments. In this connection, will the
Government inform this Council whether :
(a) it has thoroughly investigated each of the above cases to ascertain whether
the disability allowance applicants intended to cheat or the Social Welfare
Department (SWD) should take the blame for its unclear application procedures;
(b) SWD will conduct a comprehensive review on its mechanism for approving
disability allowance applications; if not, the reasons for that; and
(c) it has assessed the adverse impact of the repayment on the quality of life
of the affected blind and visually impaired children, and whether it will
consider waiving the repayment if there is adverse impact?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The Disability Allowance (DA) Scheme comprises the Normal Disability
Allowance (NDA) and Higher Disability Allowance (HDA). The cases concerned
involve overpayment of HDA. To be eligible for HDA, amongst other criteria, a
recipient must not be receiving care in a government or subvented residential
institution in order to avoid double benefits.
In handling each HDA application and subsequent reviews, the Social Welfare
Department (SWD) explains the above eligibility criteria to the applicant, and
determines the application on the basis of the information provided by the
applicant as to whether or not he/she is living at home or has been admitted to
a government or subvented residential institution. The applicant is also
required to report to the SWD immediately any change in his/her circumstances,
including admission to an institution.
Early this year, SWD conducted a cross-checking exercise with the Education and
Manpower Bureau (EMB). It was found that 71 HDA recipients had not reported
their admission to the special boarding schools operated by EMB to SWD. These
special boarding schools are a kind of subvented residential institutions.
Moreover, the SWD has assessed the amount of overpayment involved, and has
hitherto worked out arrangements for repayment by installments with 61
recipients.
(b) It has always been SWD's practice to keep review its services to recipients
of various types of social welfare allowances including the approving and
reviewing procedures for the DA and improvements will be introduced when
required. For example, SWD has recently updated its pamphlet on the DA Scheme to
provide more information to applicants.
(c) DA is non-means-tested and funded by general revenue. It aims to provide a
monthly allowance to meet special needs arising from disability. When handling
these overpayment cases, SWD staff will discuss with the applicant to agree on a
reasonable repayment plan which will ensure that the recipients will not be put
in a position in which he/she will be deprived of the basic needs. The
requirement that applicants admitted to residential institutions or hospitals
for residential care are only entitled to receive NDA is to prevent double
benefits and to ensure the proper use of public money.
Ends/Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Issued at HKT 12:42
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