Comprehensive Social Security Assistance

Recipients

As of April 2015, the total number of recipients was 251 436, with a total of 376 990 recipients. Analysed by case nature, low-earnings cases registered a month-to-month decrease of 1.7 per cent to 7 181 cases; unemployment cases also dropped by 0.8 per cent to 17 870 cases. Old age and ill health cases registered month-to-month decreases of 0.3 per cent and 0.1 per cent to 148 262 cases and 24 739 cases respectively. Permanent disability cases remained steady at 18 216 cases. Single parent cases showed a slight increase of 0.1 per cent to 29 317 cases.

1971–97

The first public assistance scheme was first introduced in 1971 as the foundation of Hong Kong's social security system. Prior to 1971 the social relief was largely confined and temporary. The Social Welfare Department only came into existence in 1958 and the government restricted its role and stressed the role of family in social welfare, as it emphasised in the first White Paper on Social Welfare published in 1965 which argued for a strengthened family to support its member. Long term plans in social welfare were introduced in the 1970s with double in social spending per capita between 1971 and 1974. Modeled from the British National Assistance Act, the 1971 public assistance scheme indicated the willingness of the government to take care the basic needs of those who are infirm and ill, which has not changed significantly throughout the years. Together with the Social Allowance Scheme (today known as Social Security Allowance Scheme) introduced in 1973, they have been the major components of Hong Kong's social security system. Throughout the 1980s, the total spending on social welfare was between 4.5 to 6.5% of the government's budget and the social security spending was about 0.57% of the gross domestic product.

As a result of the White Paper published by a Working Party in 1991 set up by Governor David Wilson, the public assistance scheme was renamed the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme in 1993 and its benefits were increased. The Working Party claimed to improve welfare "without creating the sort of dependency culture that has emerged in some industrial societies", it resisted to expand the welfare benefits along the lines of the Western welfare states. At the end of 1993, there were 92,000 CSSA cases compared with 79,700 public assistance cases in the previous year and expenditure on the scheme was $2,073.8 million, an increase of 54.9% over the previous years. In 1995, there were 140,000 people (2% of the population) receiving benefits from this scheme. and they were mainly old people and people with illness or disabilities. Nevertheless, CSSA cases rose from 92,000 in 1993 to 195,645 in 1997 in which the new unemployed cases were found increased significantly.

Since 1997

In Tung Chee-hwa's first policy address, he announced there would a review for the CSSA system. A Steering Group was subsequently set up with the membership of all civil servants with the Director of Social Welfare as the chair. The Steering Group concluded the 146% increase of CSSA cases from September 1993 to September 1998, three-fold growth of expenditure, attractions of the social security than the slow growth of wages and CSSA payments for a family of four or more were higher low-end wages. The Group recommended to slash benefits at the unemployed and families which exceeded the wages of low-end workers, unpaid voluntary work and terminate CSSA benefits with recipient refused job, re-assessment and strengthening of the arrangements to prevent fraud.

From 1997 to 2003, the CSSA cases increased from 195,645 to 288,648 and the budget rose from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $9.4 billion in 1998 and to $16 billion in 2002, due to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, arrivals of the mainland Chinese immigrants and the aging population. The Steering Group's proposals helped the decease in the new cases in 2000 but the number of low-earnings recipients continued to grow. The unemployed cases also rose sharply as the economic conditions worsened in 2003. The 11% reduction of standard rate CSSA allowances was approved by the Executive Council in February 2003 and was passed with the budget in April in the Legislative Council with the support of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong and the Liberal Party despite opposition from the Democratic Party and the Frontier, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and also a demonstration of 90 pressure groups.

Furthermore, the Task Force on Population Policy set up by the government and chaired by the then Chief Secretary, Donald Tsang recommended in its report issued on 26 February 2003 recommended the seven-years' residence requirement to restrict the new arrivals from mainland China to join the CSSA scheme. The restriction was introduced on 1 January 2004 and was challenged by judicial review in 2006. On 17 December 2013, the Court of Final Appeal ruled that the seven-years' residence requirement violated the Basic Law.

Residence requirement

One limb of the eligibility test for CSSA is the requirement of having been resident in Hong Kong for a certain number of years in the past, though not necessarily immediately before applying. Under the predecessor schemes to the CSSA, this requirement was 10 years up until 1959, five years after that, and then just one year after 1970. In 2004, the Tung Chee-hwa administration extended that period to seven years, in response to the rising cost of CSSA payments to Mainland Chinese new immigrants in Hong Kong, though children under the age of 18 were exempt from this new requirement. At the same time, the Tung administration introduced an additional requirement that the applicant have been resident in Hong Kong for one year immediately prior to the date of applicant.

Both of the requirements introduced in 2004 have since been struck down by the courts. In June 2010, in response to a lawsuit by a Hong Kong permanent resident formerly working in mainland China who had returned to Hong Kong after becoming unemployed, the Court of First Instance held that the requirement of one year's residence immediately prior to the date of application violated the right of freedom of movement in Article 31 of the Basic Law. The government appealed the ruling, but the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's ruling and ruled against the government in February 2012. Then, in a 2013 case by a mainland Chinese woman whose husband had died soon after her arrival in Hong Kong, the Court of Final Appeal ruled that the seven-years' residence requirement violated Articles 36 and 145 of the Basic Law and ordered that the previous one-year requirement be reinstated.