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Investigation results on public rental housing flats announced
On 20 February 2025, the Ombudsman, Mr Jack Chan, announced the completion of a direct investigation operation into the Government’s arrangements for the recovery, refurbishment and reallocation of public rental housing (“PRH”) flats, and has made 19 major recommendations for improvements to the Housing Department (“HD”) and the Hong Kong Housing Society (“HKHS”).
For the live broadcast of the press conference, please watch the replay on the Office’s YouTube channel.
The current-term Government has been making every effort to increase the PRH supply, and its efforts are delivering tangible results. In addition, HD and HKHS recover a number of PRH flats each year for various reasons such as tenants purchasing private flats in the market or subsidised sale flats, moving into residential care homes, passing away or voluntarily surrendering their flat for other reasons. In the past five years (note), HD and HKHS have recovered 15,700 and 1,100 PRH flats respectively on average each year. Efficient recovery and refurbishment of PRH flats is essential to speed up the reallocation of flats, thereby shortening the waiting time for public housing.
Mr Chan said, “The current-term Government has diligently identified sites and built housing estates to solve the pressing housing problem. It endeavours to enhance quantity, speed, efficiency and quality, and adopts a proactive and positive attitude in enhancing the sense of happiness of the public. In combating abuse of public housing, the Government has spared no effort and implemented enhancement measures. Its efforts are delivering tangible results.
“Subsequent to the launch of our direct investigation, HD proactively introduced several enhancement measures to expedite the process of refurbishing recovered flats for reallocation to PRH applicants. Starting from November 2024, relevant measures have been put into practice in phases. For instance, HD has set up a mechanism to provide contractors with information about the housing estates where there will be vacant flats in advance so that the contractors can make prior arrangements for the materials and manpower required for refurbishment works.
The Department will also request that contractors give priority to refurbishment of vacant flats accepted by prospective tenants. It has also revised its Vacant Flat Refurbishment Allowance Scheme to extend the coverage to all vacant units regardless of the age of the property so that those who choose to join the scheme can move in as soon as possible. We consider such efforts of HD laudable. In our view, HD and HKHS should take further steps forward to make reforms in recovery, refurbishment and reallocation arrangements to achieve a quicker turnover of PRH flats and ensure optimal utilisation of precious public housing resources.”
The Office of the Ombudsman (“the Office”) has made 19 recommendations for improvements to HD and HKHS regarding exploring improvement of workflows to speeding up recovery of PRH flats, improving the procedures for handling items left in PRH flats by previous tenants, enhancing arrangements for refurbishment and reallocation of PRH flats, and reviewing relevant measures. The Office is pleased to learn that HD and HKHS have generally accepted all the Ombudsman’s recommendations for improvement.
To read the entire article including the Ombudsman's recommendations to the HD, kindly click here.
Source: The Office of the Ombudsman, Hong Kong, China
