During the early 1970s there grew the opinion that all the different housing sections of the government would work more efficiently and give better services to Hong Kong if they were amalgamated into one department.  As a result, in 1973 the Resettlement Department, the Housing Authority and the Government Low Cost Housing Schemes were combined to form a single Hong Kong Housing Authority, the working branch of which was the new Housing Department.  The new development was aimed at the administration of an integrated housing programme in Hong Kong and the management of all public housing estates (except Housing Society estates).  With this amalgamation, resettlement estates were to have the same standards of accommodation, while the old Housing Authority and Government Low Cost Housing estates continued with the slightly higher quality developments.