It may be that when the history of social administration as an academic discipline during the 1960s comes to be looked back upon, one of the most significant developments will be seen to have been the growing influence upon it of sociology. As social services have developed in extent and complexity, a descriptive approach to the study of them has appeared ever more inadequate; and with the rapid development of sociology, both new empirical material, new perspectives, and new methods of analysis have become increasingly accessible. Social administration now uses sociological research methods, and draws heavily upon sociological theory. At the same time, both the active interest of ‘committed’ sociologists in the field of social welfare and, specifically, the emergence of the ‘sociology of welfare’ to join other sociological specializations indicate that the tendency for the two disciplines to impinge increasingly upon each other is not one-sided.

The resources of sociology do not appear to have been extensively or systematically utilized in the study of social policy and administration. One source of evidence for this statement is the absence of explicit references to sociological theories in some of the most well known general texts on British social policy and administration. Pinker's recent analysis of social theory and social policy also lends support to the view that there has been, and still remains, something of a division between sociologists and students of social policy and administration. He concludes that the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology (Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Spencer) had a tendency to be ‘not greatly interested…(in)…remedies for social problems’, and makes the general observation that ‘sociologists have been oddly diffident about the subject-matter of social administration’, possibly because of the latter's atheoretical nature.

Many things are associated with Hong Kong, but innovation in social security and social welfare is not one of them. Yet recent developments in Hong Kong are perhaps of more than local interest alone, not simply because Hong Kong has the advantage of virtually starting from scratch in developing social security but also because it has, by force of circumstance as well by inclination, had to look for what have been called ‘Hong Kong solutions for Hong Kong problems’. The results of this process might be regarded, if not as models to be copied, at least as alternative approaches to be borne in mind when other countries review the possible choices of development in social security open to them.

At the end of 1971 the Government designated the extention of the Community Development Project to the planned total of twelve areas. The project was then described as ‘a national action-research experiment’ carried out in selected urban localities in order to discover ‘how far the social problems experienced by people in a local community can be better understood and resolved through closer co-ordination of all agencies in the social welfare field – central and local government and the voluntary organizations – together with the local people themselves’. There was a special emphasis placed on the importance of ‘citizen involvement and community self-help’, together with the expectation that ‘the lessons learned can be fed back into social policy, planning and administration, both at central and local government level’.