The Social Welfare Department has welcomed the Ombudsman's call to exercise care in approving and conducting checks for special grant applications under the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance scheme.

The Ombudsman's investigation into abuse of the CSSA special grants found the department's procedures for handling the applications, its criteria for approving them and its mechanism for preventing abuse are generally in order.

It is mainly the mindset of some staff responsible for processing CSSA applications which needs reviewing. Some of the cases showed an abandonment of common sense and lack of practical judgement among some in the department.

The Ombudsman noted junior staff are sometimes required to approve complicated or dubious cases, not appropriate or commensurate with their rank or experience.

The department said it will study the report and the recommendations to achieve more effective administration of the special grants. The recommendations, where practicable, will be implemented as soon as possible.

The department said it looks forward to improving the system and maintaining an effective gate-keeping mechanism.