Tree office 'slow to act on complaints'

The Tree Management Office should step in earlier when authorities are unable to reply to complaints about trees on government land because of responsibility disputes among departments, the Ombudsman said.

The watchdog found that the tree office took more than a year to reply to complaints that posed safety hazards.

Ombudsman Winnie Chiu Wai-yin said the government received about 24,000 complaints a year between October 2018 and October last year, with over 1,100 complaints about trees on government land involving responsibility disputes among departments.

The Ombudsman found that the tree office under the Development Bureau would step in only four to six months after cases were received.

The watchdog has recommended that the TMO use the overall handling time of the case as a criterion for intervention.

Chiu said: "The TMO should supervise departments' strict compliance with the requirements of the inter-departmental mechanism in handling complaint referrals, for example raising a request to the 1823 government hotline for further referral within the specific time frame and providing sufficient information should they disagree to take on a case.

"The TMO should also instruct departments to conduct joint inspections promptly in case of disputes over tree maintenance responsibilities."

The watchdog conducted another direct investigation on the Housing Department's arrangements for senior citizens.

It said the Housing Department should consider stopping the allocation of senior public housing flats and transforming those flats into transitional housing, as around 500 single senior public housing flats have been vacant for over a decade.

The watchdog said more than 1,000 public rental housing applicants a year have refused to rent the Housing for Senior Citizens units in the past five years.

"Because of the designs of these units, which require sharing of kitchen and bathroom facilities, they are not welcome by the elderly tenants. Even when it was opened up to people under the age of 60, it is still not popular," Chiu said.

"I think people's expectations of the facilities and the living condition of public rental housing has changed over these decades, so it is time for the department to reconsider the use of such housing units for senior citizens."