Issue 45 (3/2020)

5. Cessation of the $20 refund scheme 

To encourage RSWs to apply for renewal of registration within the “Renewal Window”, so as to save the mailing and administrative expenses of sending the “Notice of intention to remove name from the Register” by registered mail, the Board has been running a refund scheme since January 2018. For RSWs who successfully submit their renewal applications within the "Renewal Window", the Board Office will send them each a refund cheque of HK $20 together with the issue of the new registration card.

In view of recent massive notification and enquires for address changes, it is useful to revisit some key points to appreciate the purpose served by such an address and what kind of addresses are needed. In short, an address serves the purposes laid down in law and it should be true and correct linked to a place with a postal address in Hong Kong. Email and post-office box addresses are not adequate. We shall elaborate as follows.

1. The purposes pertaining to an address is in accord with the spelt-out purposes of the Ordinance (Cap 505 Social Workers Registration), which is said in its long title, to be “an Ordinance to provide for the registration and disciplinary control of professional activities of RSWs and for any related matters”. Hence one address serves a three-fold purpose: registration, disciplinary controls and any related matters. The common law will rightly add that addresses are crucial for the purpose of the administration of due processes of law of professional bodies whose decisions will affect its members and the public in very significant ways.
   
   
2. Registration matters: under Cap 505, an address is a required piece of personal information to be put in the Register which is open for free public inspection (s16(1)(a)(i)). Anyone whose name is NOT on the Register is disentitled from calling himself a social worker; or from passing-off as a social worker (s.34(1)). There are hefty sanctions under our civil and criminal laws (ss.34(2); 35(h)).
   
   
3. Obtaining registration via misleading, false or fraudulent personal data (including an address) can be an offence punishable by imprisonment (s.35(d)).
   
   
4. An address is needed to send postal notices of intention of removal of RSWs from the Register by the Register (s22(4)). It is the duty of RSWs’ to update their personal data (including addresses) within three months of change. Otherwise, the Registrar is under duty to remove their names from the Register (ss.16(3), 22(f)).
   
   
5. Disciplinary matters: an address is needed in disciplinary procedures to serve pertinent documents on the parties. Whether a RSW wishes to complain or he is being complained against, an address is needed for service including face to face personal service (s31(1)).
   
   
6. Related matters: in the specified forms stipulated in the Ordinance (ss.18, 20), addresses are stated to be used for communication, and residential addresses for statutory declarations etc. (see registration form 1-1-2020; renewal form 20200101).
   
   
7. An address should be a postal address in form (paragraph 6 above ; s.22(4)); true and correct in substance (s 37(3)(a)(ii). Except for statutory declarations, it need not be residential addresses. But it must be a true and correct address that pertains to the holder. Furthermore, untrue or disingenuous addresses, if provided, (aside from paragraph 3 above), will contradict the true and correct declarations given by RSWs (when they register or renew), in the above-said specified forms.
   
   
8. Email addresses will not do as it contradicts the Ordinance (paragraphs 6 and 7 above; (ss.16(3); 31(3)). Post-office box address contradicts the common law. In common law, persons who sue providing only post box addresses; and defendants who only provide postal boxes will be reprimanded by the Court with costs consequences. In exceptional circumstances and only upon application to the court, would substituted service be allowed (substituted by say post-office box addresses). This is for the sake of due processes of law to clamp down evasiveness.
   
   
9. If RSWs insist on providing untrue or fake addresses, or resorts to email and post-office box addresses, the Registrar is under duty to take steps including removing the names of the RSWs from the Register. Of course if RSWs can rectify in time, removals would not be necessary.