Families first: The Budget aims to help strengthen families, support seniors and boost child development.

Financial Secretary Henry Tang's 2007-08 Budget has earmarked about $900 million to help the disadvantaged, through measures to promote employment, strengthen families, nurture children, take care of seniors and support social enterprise development.

The ideas spring from specific proposals from the Commission on Poverty, which has held in-depth discussions on ways to prevent or alleviate poverty and to promote self-reliance.

It will continue to study the feasibility of other poverty-alleviation measures and submit a report to the Government in the middle of this year.

The poverty-alleviation policy's core principle is to help the disadvantaged move from welfare to self-reliance through promoting employment, Mr Tang said.

Employment assistance and retraining opportunities loom large in his view of helping them improve their livelihood, "with a view to building a harmonious society."

The Government will introduce a one-year pilot transport support scheme in the middle of the year, to encourage the jobless and low-paid people in remote areas to seek jobs and work across districts. This move will cost about $300 million.

A transport allowance will also be provided to participants in the Youth Pre-Employment Training Programme and the Youth Work Experience & Training Programme.

CSSA recipients who work will enjoy a rise in the "no-deduction" limit for disregarded earnings from $600 to $800. The criteria for allowing CSSA recipients to be eligible for disregarded earnings will be relaxed from not less than three months on CSSA to not less than two months. These changes will cost about $30 million a year.

Over the past two years, additional funding of about $200 million has provided support services to families and children in need. In 2007-08, more funds are earmarked for the following measures:

* $52 million to provide more places in early education and training centres and special childcare centres for pre-school children with disabilities, and more day training and residential service places for people with disabilities.

* $31 million to give better care to victims of domestic violence, strengthen family welfare services and expand childcare services for families in need;

* $20 million to enhance outreach services for the promotion of mental health in the community and early identification of people with psychological disturbances, to give them appropriate support; and

* about $10 million over the next three years to expand the Capacity Building Mileage Programme by strengthening women's education in parenting and  encouraging continuous learning.

A $300 million fund will help provide children from a disadvantaged background with more development opportunities. Mr Tang said the Commission on Poverty will discuss its detailed operation.

There are also plans to extend the Comprehensive Child Development Service to all districts and strengthen social-services support.

In his latest Budget, Mr Tang allocates an additional $38 million to 156 elderly centres to enhance their outreach programmes, to encourage and assist more single seniors, particularly the unidentified ones, to develop their social life, and provide referral and supporting services to those in need.

It also allocates $16 million to provide more subsidised residential care places in new residential care homes for the elderly. As the population ages, the demand for such places will increase.

Over the next four years, $96 million is being set aside to launch a pilot in two districts to provide one-stop support services to seniors who have been sent home from hospital and have difficulty taking care of themselves.

To share the fruits of economic prosperity with recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and Social Security Allowance, the Financial Secretary has proposed providing one additional monthly payment.

This one-off measure would cost about $1.5 billion in 2007-08 - and benefit more than 1 million people.

Last year's Budget proposed support for the development of social enterprises, and this has been widely accepted, Mr Tang said. The Home Affairs Department's "Enhancing Self-Reliance Through Partnership Programme" has so far provided funding to 41 such projects, which are expected to provide about 750 jobs.

To nurture more management talent for these enterprises, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and tertiary institutions will offer Hong Kong's first social enterprise management training course in the middle of the year.