Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ7: Community Investment and Inclusion Fund

Following is a question by the Hon Emily Lau and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (December 21):

Question:

The Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) set up by the authorities with the provision of $300 million in February 2002 aims to develop social capital. As at August this year, CIIF has allocated a total of $65,151,283 for 82 organisations. In this connection, will the Executive Authorities inform this Council:

(a) in respect of the CIIF Committee, its Assessment Sub-Committee and the CIIF Secretariat:

(i) of the respective numbers of meetings convened for assessing funding applications, the lists of present and absent members at such meetings, as well as the number of applications assessed at each meeting; and

(ii) of the respective numbers of site visits conducted and the lists of members attending such visits;

(b) of the percentage of the projects' administrative costs in the total amount of funds allocated to the projects; and

(c) whether an appeal mechanism is in place for the organisations whose funding applications have been rejected; if so, of the numbers of organisations which have lodged appeals and those whose appeals have been allowed; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

Madam President,

The Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) was set up in 2002 to promote the new concepts and strategies of encouraging the development of "social capital". This is done through strengthening cross-sectoral and inter-generational interaction and co-operation; establishing support networks; empowering former recipients of assistance for self-help and mutual help; mobilising community resources for the development of a tripartite partnership involving the community, business sector and the government. This would enable us to respond proactively to community needs to create conditions for fostering social harmony and vibrancy. In the past three years, the CIIF Committee has examined a total of seven batches of applications and approved 90 projects involving $71 million.

As CIIF is tasked to promote new concepts and methods, the CIIF Committee has taken a proactive approach to publicise and permeate the concepts. Briefing sessions are held. Applicants are met individually as necessary to explore ways of revising their proposed strategies to increase effectiveness etc. Site visits are also conducted when the projects are being implemented for reviewing their strategies and effectiveness.

For each batch of applications, the CIIF Assessment Sub-Committee normally convenes one to two meetings to process some 50 applications before submitting its recommendations to the CIIF Committee for endorsement. The average attendance rate for the meetings was about 70%.

CIIF makes one site visit to each project every year and may, depending on progress and need for guidance, arrange for more meetings with selected projects. Members responsible for the projects are normally invited to join the visits and they would consider joining subject to their availability and other arrangements. We have so far conducted some 150 site visits, with more than half joined by members.

The CIIF mobilises community resources and encourages cross-sectoral collaboration for implementing the projects, focusing more on volunteers and mutual help. The funded organisations are also encouraged to make use of their existing premises and other administrative support as far as possible. Hence, the administrative cost of CIIF projects constitute a low percentage of the total approved funding, generally less than 5%.

We have not put in place any appeal system for organisations whose funding applications have been rejected because we would discuss with the applicants on the reasons for not approving their applications and assist them on possible areas for improvement. Hence, so long as the applicant organisations are prepared to discuss with CIIF to align their concepts and strategies with the Fund, we stand ready to help them to perfect their proposals. In fact, amongst the 90 approved projects, quite a lot of them have gone through this consultative process before approval.


Ends/Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Issued at HKT 12:27

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