PSD's Addendum to President's Address – 9 May 2018

Prime Minister’s Office 
(Public Service Division)

Addendum to the President’s Address

Mr Chan Chun Sing
Minister for Trade & Industry and Minister-in-charge of the Public Service

Our Aspirations

1 The Public Service Division (PSD) and all public agencies continually seek to build a better future for our nation and our people. We aspire to serve Singapore and Singaporeans well through anticipating their needs, and delivering services to them in an agile and responsive manner. We will organise ourselves to serve from the people’s perspective, not from agencies’ perspective; strengthen the trust and bond with Singaporeans; and uphold the Public Service values of Integrity, Service, and Excellence.

Transformation to Deliver Better Outcomes

2 While we develop a long term plan for the next lap for our Public Service, we will press on with efforts for our agencies to better deliver on the Government’s priorities. All public sector agencies are developing plans to transform their operations and services. We will further integrate the Public Service by grouping services provided by different agencies together for our citizens at key moments in their lives. We are starting with Moments-of-Life for Families, which aims to be more citizen-centric, intuitive, and convenient for Singaporeans starting a family to access Government schemes.

3 Our agencies will go beyond “Whole-of-Government”, and mobilise “Whole-of-Nation” efforts. We will partner businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders to develop better solutions together. We will continue to actively reach out to others, whether overseas or in the private sector, hear their views, learn from their successes and failures, and improve ourselves along the way. We will communicate clearly and simply to the public, and seek to bring everyone on board.

4 Our comparative advantage is in anticipating needs and responding to challenges. We will sustain this advantage. We will champion innovation and test-bed new ideas. We will respond quickly to issues and be more efficient, innovative, and productive. We will tap on digital technologies as an enabler. We will sharpen and deepen our Public Sector Transformation efforts, making use of, and responding to the disruptions brought on by new technology and business models.

Equipping Agencies and Officers to Deliver

5 The heart of the Public Service lies in the dedication and abilities of our officers. PSD will continue to strengthen our Public Service values, build skills for future jobs, transform our people practices, and develop our leaders.

6 We will build a system for our people to thrive, with shared values and aspirations for Singapore to succeed. In line with the SkillsFuture movement, we will also equip public officers with the skills necessary for tomorrow’s challenges. The Civil Service College has refreshed its training programmes and methods of delivery to meet these needs. We have restructured career paths to give officers career progression opportunities, regardless of academic qualifications.

7 We will bring people of diverse skillsets to work together. We will also continue to build new capabilities for the Public Service to serve Singapore’s future needs. These include stronger engineering capabilities to develop our city infrastructure, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expertise to make us a Smart Nation and Digital Government. We are training public officers in data analytics and digital literacy, so as to better understand citizens’ needs and improve public services.

8 We value our officers and will continue to look after their needs. Agencies will adopt more flexible and inclusive hiring practices, including hiring more persons with disabilities and freelancers. As a diverse workforce, we recognise that officers have different needs at different stages of life. We will consider more flexible practices that better suit officers’ life-cycle needs.

9 Transformation requires strong leadership. We will continue to invest in developing our leaders, and ensure that they have the right values and skills. Diversity of skills within leadership teams is essential for keeping our system resilient against emerging challenges. We will continue to ensure a strong leadership pipeline. Our leadership development efforts have expanded to cover specialist leaders in all fields and from more diverse backgrounds. We are better equipping leaders to lead transformation efforts through coaching support, 360 degree assessments, and exposure to more diverse experiences. We will do more to hone the managerial and leadership skills of junior leaders.

Conclusion

10 The Singapore Public Service aims to work in a “Whole-of-Nation” manner to deliver a better future, and strengthen the trust and bond between the Government and Singaporeans. We will continue to strive to be an enduring pillar for our nation’s success.