TOPIC 6: COMMENT ON THE PROS AND CONS OF PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL WELFARE SERVICES IN HONG KONG SOCIETY. USE THE "LINK-REIT" AS AN EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE YOUR ANSWER. INTRODUCTION The Link-Reit (Real Estate Investment Trust) has long been a controversial issue ever since its launch. The issue in fact concerns the privatization of welfare services. The purpose of this paper is to review the worthiness of privatization in the midst of conflicts of interests among different groups of people in Hong Kong. For a start, the definition of privatization of welfare services will be stated. Then, there would be a brief summary on the privatization development in Hong Kong. As this paper will focus on discussing privatization by using the Link-Reit …show more content…
It provided for an interest-free loan to assist eligible households to meet the down-payment on a small to medium-sized domestic flat in the private sector (La Grange, 1997, p. 75-76). Sale of Flats to Sitting Tenants Scheme (SFSTS) was introduced in 1991. The proposal states that about five-year-old flats were to be considered for sale to overcome the two major barriers to home ownership: the high price of private sector dwellings and the limited stock of HOS/PSPS flats relative to demand (La Grange, 1997, p. 77). Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) was another scheme announced in December 1997, offering tenants an opportunity to buy their units at deeply discounted prices, reduced public housing tenants' bids for private homes. However, this adversely affected home transactions. Moreover, the Housing Department started to contract out estate maintenance management services to Property Management Agents in private sector from 1987. All these schemes have successfully encouraged private sectors to participate in housing except SFSTS which was proved to be a failure under such a harsh requirement and merely 3000-4000 five year old flats were sold under the scheme in first year operation (La Grange, 1998, p. 512). BACKGROUND OF LINK-REIT The Link-Reit is managed by the Link Management Limited and
A housing policy can be thought of as the efforts put in by a given government to transform a housing market(s) for the purposes of achieving social objectives. In most cases, a housing policy is meant to ensure that the general population has access to a home that is affordable. For instance, the British Conservative/Liberal Democratic coalition’s housing policy is aimed at increasing the number of affordable housing units; fostering homeownership; making social housing flexible; tackling homelessness (especially for the
For most tenants they have been replaced by Housing Benefit. The sale of Dundee’s council housing to tenants and mass transfers of stock to Registered Social Landlords, have reduced the numbers to approx 14,000 current stock. As the role of council housing has diminished, Housing Associations have been encouraged to take over the limited opportunities for development.
The Housing Act in 1952 revoked the Housing Act 1936 restricting requirement to obtain the best sale price for these properties and between 1952-1979 the acting government granted various consents, in 1967, to prevent under-pricing, market value sale price was introduced and remains so to this day.
Under the NPM umbrella, public sector has also been experiencing a shift to greater competition. The need to remove monopoly of service delivery and create contestability, through privatization, public tendering, and term contracts, justifies the adoption of competition principle (Dunleavy 1994; Hood 1991). Insisting to do bureaucratic provision on public services instead of contracting them out, knowing that private sector can deliver them better, it is believed would only force governments to lose comparative advantages on price, efficiency, and effectiveness (Dunleavy 1994. p.49). This way, governments are able to fulfil their responsibility in providing services and the financing, while simultaneously stimulate greater competition among providers under market dynamics. However, it is hard to instigate public service ethos in private parties. Therefore, the capacity of private entities to act consistently with the public interest is greatly questioned in this scenario. Are concerns such as public health and safety, environment sustainability, and social equity likely to be sacrificed underneath market mechanisms? When power is shared with organizations which have business objectives apart from government’s goals, the fundamental issue is how to detect which missions they are carrying out. Many public services being delivered by third parties are targeted for vulnerable sections of the community which can pose a higher risk of potential abuse, neglect, exploitation, and
This proposed study examines the development of housing policy and right to buy from the view of government mentality of UK. This study focused on the difficulties not only to the purchaser of council house but also to those tenants who have not purchase tenancies in UK. This proposed study also discusses the role of social housing in 21st century housing policy. Aim of this study is to provide a framework to the researcher and to identify different impacts of Right to buy scheme on housing market. Among other issues, this study also discusses that council housing gives better opportunities and provide security to the tenants with 33% to 55% discount as compared to market price.
The utilization of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit or LIHTC has had an overall positive effect on housing for low-income families in the United States. Four key outcomes of the LIHTC are: First, there is less likelihood of segregation within the tax-credit housing than in the government provided section 8 and government-subsidized voucher programs (Schwartz, p. 115). Second, the purpose of the program, which was to subsidize mixed income housing to low and working class families, is provisionally being met (Khadduri, Buron, & Lam, p. 10). Third, through decentralization of the implementation of the LIHTC program the federal government allowed the state governments more latitude in the dissemination of the tax credits to appropriate developers (Furman Center, p. 2). Finally, there is a correlation between the areas where LIHTC housing properties are developed in the impact on the sounding region. This correlation is both positive and negative in nature, but heavily is judged on the region that the LIHTC is built in and as to whether it is in an urban center, suburb, or in the metro areas (Deng, pp. 46-48). These four outcomes will guide the body of this paper about the overarching theme of LIHTC as a policy tool as opposed to section 8 housing or government provided housing.
Gain Understanding of owner/developer issues within Real Estate Finance Understand tools and methods for evaluating projects Understand general structure of a project pro forma using multifamily case study Gain basic ability to construct a project pro forma Develop initial tools to quantify a project
Kernaghan, K. 2000. The Post-Bureaucratic Organization and Public Services Values. Interational Review of Administrative Sciences 66. 2000, pp. 92-93.
The public housing authority, Housing Development Board (HBD) was a very important aspect to Singapore’s basic shelter needs. In 2007, basic shelter needs were used for 3.7 million of Singapore’s population. Singapore is considered a city-state in South East Asia where the government is heavily involved. As a non-profit organization, the local government is responsible for overseeing and administering certain decisions and responsibilities of Singapore’s public housing. The Housing Development Board was mainly involved in the pricing, marketing and sales of the public housing authority (Jick & Peiperl, 2011).
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Youness Elhamidi, Department of Public Administration, American Public University System, 111 W. Congress Street, Charles Town, WV 25414. E-mail: yelhamidi@apus.edu.
The research question of this Economics Extended Essay is, “To what extent does the Singapore Government’s policies on housing and immigration, help to increase the demand of the private property sector in the housing market.” For this investigation I used a variety of gathered raw data and policies from the Singapore government websites, on top of that I kept a collection of newspaper progressively monitoring the local property market. The
Contracting out is the process through which public organizations contract with private sector organizations to provide services normally provided by public agencies. It is a form of privatization, which is defined as any shift of activity or functions from the state to the private sector, more specifically, the shift of production of goods or services from public to private. (Starr, 5) Privatization reduces the role of government and increases the role of private sector agencies. However, public agencies maintain ultimate control over the provision of services and they control government funding.
China is one of the major economical players in today’s international market. China’s economy is the “seconds largest in the world after the United States” (Joseph, 63). This is a striking achievement due to fact that China is a “developing country”. China has achieved a great amount of success through the collaboration of political and economical regimes. The economical growth in China led to “one of the biggest improvements in human welfare anywhere at anytime” (Kristof, 15). Currently, China is experiencing a real-estate bubble. This eventually will hit a climax, disrupting the real-estate market within China. This real estate bubble that China is undergoing is considered one of the "biggest housing
In the following paragraphs, I will explain the dominant theory in public administration practice and elaborate on the major theoretical assumptions of the Old Public Administration. As stated in the question, the world has transformed through globalization, information technology, and devolution of authority since the latter part of the last century. The dominant theory in public administration has been replaced from the traditional rule-based, authority-driven processes of the Old Public Administration with market-based, competition-driven tactics in the New Public Management, beginning in the 1980s (Kettl, 2000, p. 3). This was an effort to privatize government and streamline public administration to maximize efficiency and productivity. Heavily relying on market mechanisms to guide public programs, public administrators in the New Public Management are encouraged to “steer, not row,” meaning they should not bear the burden of delivering services, but instead define programs that others will carry out, through contracting or other means (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011, p. 13). Core values of the New Public Management include using private sector and business approaches to the public sector, squeezing as many services as possible from smaller revenues, market style incentives, providing customers more choices, and focusing on outputs and outcomes instead of mainly processes.
Market share in the real estate business in Singapore is mainly capitalized by few big players such as City Development Limited, CapitaLand and Keppel Land. If any multi-national real estate company approaches to invest here, they will be restricted to a marginal shareholding in the new companies. A new entrant will be therefore a private Singaporean company, and as such the barriers to entry is high in the real estate business.