LCQ8: Youth uniformed groups
17.5.2023

Following is a question by the Hon Kenneth Leung and a written reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Tang Ping-keung, in the Legislative Council today (May 17): Question: At present, seven disciplined and auxiliary services under the Security Bureau (SB) have established youth uniformed groups (including the Customs Youth Leader Corps, the Correctional Services Department's Rehabilitation Pioneer Leaders, the Fire and Ambulance Services Teen Connect, the Junior Police Call, the Immigration Department Youth Leaders Corps, the Auxiliary Medical Service Cadet Corps and the Civil Aid Service Cadet Corps). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council: (1) of the following information on each of the aforesaid youth uniformed groups in each of the past three years: the number of members, the number of ethnic minority members, and the number of schools from which their members came; (2) given that in reply to a question raised by a Member of this Council in respect of the Estimates of Expenditure 2023-2024, the Government indicated that the implementation work of the youth uniformed groups involved staff from different positions, including staff who concurrently shared other duties, whether the Government will allocate additional resources and deploy manpower with a view to having dedicated staff to take charge of the operation of the youth uniformed groups; (3) of the membership recruitment plans and targets of the aforesaid seven youth uniformed groups, and how they strengthen recruitment work in schools, the community and ethnic minority youth communities; whether the authorities will provide additional funding and manpower in the light of the scale of expansion of the youth uniformed groups, and set long-term development goals for such youth uniformed groups; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and (4) in respect of the members of the Security Bureau Youth Uniformed Group Leaders Forum set up earlier by the SB, of the distribution of the youth uniformed groups from which such members come; the cross-disciplined services youth activities to be provided by the SB for participation by members of the various youth uniformed groups; as the Government indicated earlier on that it would offer internship places in the disciplined services to let members of the youth uniformed groups experience the disciplined services' work, and would actively organise exchange activities on the Mainland, of the details of such internships and exchange activities? Reply: President, The Security Bureau (SB) and its six disciplined services and two auxiliary services departments have all along been committed to youth development work and actively organising youth programmes relevant to their areas of work. Currently, all disciplined and auxiliary services departments (except the Government Flying Service (GFS)) have set up their own youth uniformed groups, while the GFS has deepened its collaboration with the Hong Kong Air Cadet Corps. The reply to the questions raised by the Member is as follows: (1) Information on the youth uniformed groups in the past three years (as at the end of that year) is tabulated below: Year Number of members Number of ethnic minority members Number of schools from which their members came (Note 1) Junior Police Call (JPC) 2020 176 413 5 683 No statistics 2021 167 540 5 171 2022 161 486 5 154 Fire and Ambulance Services Teen Connect (FAST Connect) (Note 2) 2020 Not yet established 2021 120 3 4 2022 180 3 6 Immigration Department Youth Leaders Corps 2020 216 0 5 2021 207 3 8 2022 417 10 16 Customs YES (numbers for the Customs Youth Leader Corps are in brackets) (Note 3) 2020 Not yet established 2021 1 364 (188) 18 (2) 288 (95) 2022 3 238 (409) 36 (3) 398 (151) Rehabilitation Pioneer Project of the Correctional Services Department (CSD) 2020 105 7 40 2021 174 12 62 2022 234 17 90 Civil Aid Service (CAS) Cadet Corps 2020 3 591 85 566 2021 3 800 118 583 2022 3 696 107 581 Auxiliary Medical Service (AMS) Cadet Corps 2020 2 324 8 No statistics 2021 2 293 8 2022 1 895 10 Note 1: The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) and the AMS do not have the relevant statistics. Note 2: FAST Connect was established in December 2021. Note 3: Customs and Excise Department (C&ED) launched the youth programme "Customs YES" in January 2021 and established the youth uniformed group "Customs Youth Leader Corps" under the programme in July 2021. (2) Currently, most of the disciplined and auxiliary services departments have dedicated staff who are specifically tasked to handle the work of youth uniformed groups. At the same time, there are staff participating in the relevant work in addition to their original duties so as to support and enhance the development of youth uniformed groups. The departments will continue to deploy resources and manpower flexibly to sustain their efforts in promoting youth development, having regard to factors such as the number of youth members and the number and scale of youth activities. (3) As remarked by President Xi Jinping, "when the young people thrive, Hong Kong thrives." Young people are the future, hope and pillars of Hong Kong. The SB and its six disciplined services and two auxiliary services departments actively promote youth development work. The aim is to cultivate young people's physical and mental health, positive thinking, law-abiding and national security awareness, patriotism, and sense of discipline and team spirit, thereby helping them equip themselves to contribute to Hong Kong and our country. The disciplined and auxiliary services departments have adopted a multi-pronged approach to recruit youth uniformed group members, including conducting publicity and recruitment through seminars, outreach recruitment activities and social media. They also actively co-operate with the Education Bureau and different primary and secondary schools. Examples include JPC school clubs and the CAS's Youth Potential Development Scheme, which organise various types of training and activities at school to nurture positive thinking and law-abiding awareness among students while achieving publicity and recruitment purposes. New initiatives have also been introduced in recent years to enhance the effectiveness of membership recruitment. For instance, since March 2020, the HKPF has closely communicated and collaborated with the Hong Kong Association of Heads of Secondary Schools, Parent-Teacher Associations and school sponsoring bodies through the "Force Working Group on Community Engagement" to jointly promote youth crime prevention as well as JPC's development and recruitment, and the JPC Mobile Application was released in April 2021 to make it easier for young people to receive information about JPC and register as members. Besides, the C&ED launched the Customs YES Promotion Vehicle in October 2022 to visit various tertiary institutions, secondary schools and hot spots popular among young people to conduct membership recruitment and hold education and promotional activities. Early this year, by inviting the children of serving staff of various grades in the department to sign up, the Fire Services Department also succeeded in enlisting a total of 55 young people from 44 secondary schools to join FAST Connect. The disciplined and auxiliary services departments have all along welcomed ethnic minority youngsters to join their youth uniformed groups. While the above-mentioned membership recruitment initiatives can all reach out to ethnic minority youth, individual departments have also put in place engagement programmes for racial harmony targeted at ethnic minority youth. These programmes include "Project Gemstone", "Project Himalaya" and "Star Making Project" organised by individual police districts, which provide diversified activities and training to help non-ethnic Chinese youth aspiring to join the HKPF get themselves prepared. Meanwhile, the CAS has launched the Special Talent Scheme to offer people of diverse race a series of community safety education activities, such as mountain rescue and typhoon emergency support, with a view to facilitating continuous learning and development among youth of diverse race, so that they can integrate into the community and have a greater sense of belonging. These programmes help the departments reach out to ethnic minority youth on a wider scale, thereby attracting more ethnic minority youth to join the relevant youth uniformed groups. The SB has set a performance indicator regarding increasing the number of active members of youth uniformed groups of the disciplined services departments. The target was to increase the number of active members by 5 per cent within 2022. Last year, the number of active members of youth uniformed groups of disciplined services departments increased by over 25 per cent, far exceeding the performance indicator laid down. Looking ahead, the departments will continue to strengthen their recruitment of youth members through various appropriate means as well as deploy resources and manpower flexibly in the light of the scale of expansion of the youth uniformed groups, with a view to promoting youth development. (4) The Security Bureau Youth Uniformed Group Leaders Forum (Leaders Forum) has a total of 50 youth members. They are distinguished and promising members of the youth uniformed groups of various disciplined and auxiliary services departments, and have been chosen as members of the Leaders Forum following rigorous selection. The distribution of members of the Leaders Forum is as follows: Youth uniformed groups Number JPC 16 FAST Connect 4 Immigration Department Youth Leaders Corps 3 Customs Youth Leader Corps 16 CSD's Rehabilitation Pioneer Leaders 3 CAS Cadet Corps 2 AMS Cadet Corps 3 Hong Kong Air Cadet Corps (GFS' close partner in youth work) 3 Total 50 The SB will provide 10 summer internship places for members of the Leaders Forum this year to enhance their competence through practical work and internship training. The SB will also organise exchange tours, to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and Xian, Yan'an and Beijing respectively, for members of the Leaders Forum, with a view to enhancing their understanding of national development and Chinese history and culture through first-hand visit and experience. Apart from the Leaders Forum, the SB also actively takes forward cross-disciplined services youth activities. Recent examples include arranging youth groups of the departments under the SB to participate in the T&uuml;rkiye rescue experience sharing session conducted by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region search and rescue team in March 2023, as well as the flag-raising ceremony on the National Security Education Day and the Safe Community Fun Day organised by the Inter-departmental Counter Terrorism Unit in April 2023, with a view to broadening the horizons of youth members and conveying positive messages to them. Besides, to strengthen life planning education for the youth uniformed groups, the six disciplined services departments will offer a total of more than 100 internship places in the disciplined services this year. These interns from the youth uniformed groups will provide administrative support to the departments, assist in organising community education activities, etc, during which they can experience the disciplined services' work and prepare themselves for a career in the disciplined services. With regard to exchange activities to the Mainland, following the resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and the Mainland, the disciplined and auxiliary services departments already organised a total of 11 exchange tours between March and April 2023, with over 400 youth uniformed group members visiting GBA cities such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhongshan and Zhuhai. These exchange tours covered diversified activities, including visits to law enforcement agencies, technology companies, schools and museums in the Mainland. Direct dialogue between members and Mainland youngsters were also arranged to enhance their understanding of the country and foster their patriotism. The SB and its departments will continue to actively organise more youth exchange activities to the Mainland.