Secretary for Labour & Welfare Chris Sun today inspected the Children's Residential Home (CRH) of the Society for the Protection of Children to look into the progress of its revamp project and the conditions of children under residential care.

Mr Sun was first briefed by representatives of the society and the residential home on the implementation of the improvement measures recommended by an independent review committee.

He looked into the progress of the revamp project undertaken with the Council of Non-profit Making Organizations for Pre-primary Education, including the effectiveness of enhanced management, strengthened training and an expanded manning ratio. He then visited the CRH's facilities and spoke to children under residential care and frontline staff.

Mr Sun said: “The CRH incident was distressing. Stringent follow-up action must be taken to learn from this painful lesson and ensure the implementation of improvement measures in every aspect of the Society for the Protection of Children is effective, in place and sustainable in order to achieve its mission on children protection.”

A committee chaired by the Director of Social Welfare has completed a review on residential child care centres and related services with the first-phase review report expected to be completed within this month. The second-phase review will cover other related services, with the aim of completion by March next year, he added.