Speech by Mr Chan Chun Sing at Committee of Supply Debate 2024

Speech by Mr Chan Chun Sing at Committee of Supply Debate 2024

A Forward-Looking Public Service: Operating, Developing and Partnering for the Future

1. Chair, we thank all members for your cuts, questions and suggestions for the Public Service, and how we can do better. Indeed, today, we have a Public Service that the vast majority, if not all Singaporeans, can be proud of. But we in the Public Service are acutely aware of the need for us to stay ahead of the game.

2. As Mr Patrick Tay mentioned, technology is changing rapidly. The way countries are organising themselves and their Public Service are also rapidly evolving. We must be careful that we do not rest on our laurels. We must continue to innovate, continue to want to do better, and come up with new solutions, lest we be overtaken by others. And if we do not have a strong, committed and innovative Public Service, it will not help us to inspire confidence in investors and local enterprises to put their investments here to create good jobs for our people.

3. Our Government believes that we cannot rely on today's or yesterday's solutions for tomorrow's problems. We have to constantly look for new processes and new organisations to meet tomorrow's challenges. A forward looking and future ready Public Service is central to Singapore's success. Let me share how our Public Service is going to operate, develop and partner differently to ensure that we are ready for future challenges.

Operating differently for the future

4. Let me start with how we are going to evolve the way we organise ourselves.

5. Increasingly, our Public Service will be organised in a more mission-centric way, given the complexity and interdependency of issues that many members have mentioned. For example, to more effectively tackle climate change, we set up the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) in 2010. This has worked out well and borne fruit.

6. NCCS has allowed us to sharpen our focus on climate change across agencies in the whole of Government. For example, NCCS worked with the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment to develop the Singapore Green Plan 2030 to achieve our long-term goal of net-zero emissions. But behind that, there was participation from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), Ministry of Education, Ministry of Manpower and many other agencies.

7. In 2019, to better harness the potential of technology, we formed the Public Sector Science and Technology Policy and Plans Office (S&TPPO). We are seeing the fruits of this effort too.

8. For example, robots are increasingly deployed in buildings for services like cleaning and security. But they cannot communicate with each other because of different manufacturers having their own proprietary software. This is inefficient. To drive the adoption of robotics and automation, S&TPPO worked with A*STAR and GovTech to adapt and deploy a universal middleware for the Public Service. With this, robots from different manufacturers can now communicate with each other and with lifts, doors and security gantries to move autonomously around buildings. Successful trials have been completed in Tampines Regional Library and the JTC Summit with the National Library Board (NLB) and JTC. S&TPPO is working with GovTech and the Infocomm Media Development Authority to further test the product with other public and private sectors.

9. Yet another example where we have become much more mission-focused and mission-centric is ground operations. To improve efficiency, S&TPPO and GovTech are working with agencies to apply video analytics. Rather than just focusing on each agency’s own CCTV video feed, S&TPPO is driving the consolidation of these non-sensitive feeds into a consolidated video exchange before applying video analytics to the consolidated video feeds. This can improve decision-making and response times, such as identifying an overcrowding situation that requires intervention, or preventing worksite incidents.

10. We will continue to build on these successes to refine the way we organise ourselves going forward.

11. In response to Ms Mariam Jaafar's earlier questions to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong about centralisation, from a Public Service perspective, centralisation is not the only way that we can allow better coordination across the various agencies. In fact, depending on the problem and the nature of the problem, we have different methods.

12. Sometimes we may start up a new agency, centralise, and put it under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to incubate it. Other times, we may assign one of the involved agencies to be the lead, as the first among equals to coordinate. But that lead agency is like a mini joint staff. It must have people participating from other agencies to support it. And our hope is that over time, each and every one of our agencies, when tackling a new problem, can be a mini joint staff where they can harness the energies and capabilities and capacities of other agencies to come together. So, it does not mean that every new problem that requires more coordination needs to be centralised at the PMO, or needs a new agency to be created.

13. Next, let me respond to Mr Yip Hon Weng on how we reorganised service delivery to be much more citizen-centric.

14. In 2021, we formed ServiceSG to create a single touchpoint for citizens to access multiple services across agencies. In the digital sphere, we have made great strides in making services more intuitive, seamless and relevant for citizens, and we will continue to improve. For example, Singaporeans can use SupportGoWhere, a one-stop portal to find Government support schemes and services. A key feature is the Care Services Recommender for caregivers to find the support they need easily and conveniently. Another example is the MyLegacy@LifeSG portal which helps citizens plan ahead for end-of-life matters.

15. Even as more services are digitalised, the Public Service is committed to ensuring that our services continue to be accessible and inclusive for all. Today, citizens can walk into the seven physical ServiceSG centres across Singapore and access close to 600 services and schemes from over 25 agencies. Seniors who have difficulty making online transactions can simply walk in. Officers are cross-trained to help them access frequently used digital services, and 70 per cent of citizens visiting ServiceSG Centres in 2023 were aged 55 and above.

16. We will continue to expand the network of ServiceSG Centres to prioritise areas with higher demand and concentration of citizens, particularly seniors, who require support with multiple digital transactions. Aligned with this, two new centres will be established at Woodlands Civic Centre and Bukit Merah Central by the end of 2024.

17. There are whole-of-government service standards to ensure agencies uphold a consistent and satisfactory level of service. To avoid cases falling through the cracks, we have a No Wrong Door policy for any public feedback received. We will continue to ensure that our policies, standards and practices are inclusive to all.

18. For municipal services, the Municipal Services Office, coordinates across agencies and town councils to serve residents.

19. For businesses, MTI and GovTech are continuously evolving the GoBusiness portal to facilitate a globally competitive, pro-enterprise operating environment in Singapore. The GoBusiness portal allows businesses to access services across multiple government agencies by milestone moments.

20. These are just examples of how the Public Service is organising and evolving to be much more mission-centric and much more citizen-centric.

Developing a future-ready workforce

21. Let me respond to Mr Patrick Tay and Mr Melvin Yong’s cuts on their feedback on how public officers need to cultivate different skillsets and perspectives to thrive in the new operating context.

22. Within the Service, public officers can gain new skillsets from formal training courses and increasingly through hands-on development opportunities. These range from short-term attachments – what we call Short Term Immersion Programme (STIP) and Gig work – to longer-term job rotations, or Structured Job Rotations (SJR).

23. The take-up rate has been good. The number of officers matched to these opportunities jumped five-fold, from 730 in 2021 to 3,700 in 2023. For example, ServiceSG Centre Head Ms Umamageswari signed up for a STIP with the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC). With AIC’s Silver Generation Office, she engaged seniors to better understand their concerns and share how the government can support them.

24. We are happy to report that the people who have gone through this programme have found the cross-pollination of ideas very useful. At the same time, it helps them to build the network of relationships required for a much more responsive Public Service.

25. We are also deliberate in exploring alternative modalities such as bootcamps and competitions to generate interest in building new capabilities. To build data capabilities, GovTech organises the annual Data Champions Bootcamp and Data Arcade Tournament. To build AI capabilities, GovTech launched the Prompt Royale Award, a prompt engineering competition, last year. This year, GovTech will launch a new AI Champions bootcamp.

26. Public officers can also expand their perspectives through exposure beyond the Public Service. We are encouraging the public officers to experience the perspective of citizens and businesses through stints in the private and people sectors, such as the Talent Attachment Programme (TAP). Under TAP, EnterpriseSG officer Clarence Tan was attached to DBS Bank’s Business Analytics team. There, he learned how to operate with big commercial datasets to achieve an all-round understanding of customers. These insights were helpful when Clarence subsequently returned to EnterpriseSG to use data to further partner businesses on their growth journey.

27. We have set aside up to 40 hours per year for officers to pursue their own development opportunities outside the public sector. For example, Ivy Lee from NLB volunteered with Friends-in-Deed Counselling Society as a certified counsellor. In her journey with three individuals over 10 months, she deepened her empathy and communication skills. This helped her to become a more empathetic middle-manager in NLB.

28. An effective Public Service needs to operate well both locally and internationally. We are equipping more public officers with broader international perspectives through exchange programmes and deployment to international organisations at all levels, where they fly Singapore’s flag high.

29. Let me give some examples. Ambassador Rena Lee, who is the current Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), was elected as President of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) in 2018 when she was an officer in the Attorney-General’s Chambers’ International Affairs Division. As IGC President, Rena built upon her strong international networks and mastery of international law, which helped her build bridges during multilateral negotiations. The success of Ambassador Lee’s presidency has entrenched Singapore’s standing in the international community as a thought leader in international law, and as an advocate for a rules-based multilateral system.

30. Another example is Mr Daryl Ong from IPOS who participated in the two-year Madrid Fellowship Program administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Through this, he built his network with other countries’ trademark examiners and deepened his knowledge of the Madrid Protocol. Daryl transformed the way trademark data is communicated from IPOS to WIPO to be faster and more accurate. This has benefitted trademark owners in Singapore.

31. We will continue to look out for opportunities for our officers to be attached to international organisations at all levels, including United Nations agencies, because this allows us to understand the issues that are evolving at international circles and we can better prepare ourselves to integrate and work with these agencies in time to come.
    
    Partnering differently for our future compact

32. Now beyond organising ourselves differently and building new capabilities in our officers, we also need to partner differently.

33. Partnership is a key component of the refreshed social compact under Forward Singapore. Strong partnerships are anchored on trust. The Public Service has worked hard over generations to earn the trust of Singaporeans, and is committed to a strong system of governance.

34. Ms He Ting Ru asked whether our regulations or practices need any updates to ensure that our governance frameworks are not compromised, and Mr Louis Chua asked about making asset declarations public for Ministers. I have responded to these topics extensively in past Parliamentary replies, but if I may, I will reiterate a few things.

35. Different countries have different rules for their people and organisations, and as all of us will agree, no one rule is a panacea to prevent corruption or lobbying. But what we need to do is look at the system holistically, look at the outcome that we have achieved and ask ourselves: “What is the scale and magnitude of our problem?” Putting in new and more rules does not necessarily solve the problems that we may not even have to start with.

36. Whenever we put in new rules, we must be careful of any unintended consequences. For example, I just checked the data that was quoted by some members about countries who have adopted some of those more elaborate rules. In the Corruption Perceptions Index, in the last five years, Singapore has been ranked consistently between number three and number five. But those countries who supposedly have more elaborate rules are actually ranked much lower. For example, the UK was ranked between 11 and 20.

37. When we look at how to make sure that we retain the trust of our people, we must look at it at a system level. And if I may reiterate what I have said previously, this must occur at three levels.

38. First, we must make sure that we select good people with the right values to understand not just the letter of the law but the spirit of the law and uphold them. Second, we must work as a system, as a team to make sure that we look out for one another, check each other’s blind spots, and help to prevent one another from falling into a situation where they might be compromised. Third, we must have layers of checks internally and externally to pick up issues whenever there are problems.

39. This is how we have managed to keep our system relatively corruption-free and lobby-free all these years. But no system is perfect, and the situation is evolving. Every time we put in rules, there will be parties that will try to go around our rules. We have to evolve our own rules to make sure that we are never complacent. If we try to copy other people's rules, we must see what they have been able to achieve versus what we have been able to achieve, and what problems they have been able to solve versus what problems we are trying to solve. And there is no magic answer to this.

40. We should also care for the confidentiality of the information and the privacy concerns of senior officers in the Public Service, including political office holders. Why stop at the Ministers? Why not the Members of Parliament? Why stop at the Permanent Secretaries? Why not the Directors? I think for every rule that we put in, there are implications that we should consider carefully and ask ourselves whether the price that we pay is commensurate with the problem that we are trying to solve.

41. Mr Saktiandi Supaat also asked how the Government can partner citizens better. The formation of the Singapore Government Partnerships Office (SGPO) signals our commitment to the next bound of partnerships and engagements. Beyond partnering on issues that are already on the national agenda, we will engage citizens to set the agenda.

42. We are building from a position of strength. We have already established a clear track record of engagements and partnerships with the community, from consulting to co-creating and co-delivering solutions.

43. For lower-income families and their children, we have moved beyond public consultations on government proposals to proactively co-create and co-deliver solutions with the public. For example, under the Growing Together with KidSTART initiative, corporates and volunteers partner KidSTART Singapore to co-create fun learning opportunities for KidSTART families and their children.

44. As part of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, the Green Action for Communities (GAC) movement was launched in 2022 to involve the community in co-creating ground-up sustainability efforts.

45. We are also strengthening partnerships with the private sector. During COVID-19, many came forward to help and co-create solutions together with the government. We are doubling down on these new ways of working together. There have been over 35 Alliances for Action (AfAs) covering a range of common interests.

46. We are formalising our partnerships with corporates, such as the Memorandum of Understanding with the Singapore Airlines Group last month to collaborate in areas such as training and volunteer management in essential support care roles in the healthcare sector. This will also allow the Public Service to surge our capabilities in contingencies, by drawing upon capacities in the private sector.

47. I thank Ms Denise Phua for her cut on the Public Service For Good movement. I launched it in July last year to provide public officers with opportunities to actively partner citizens on a personal level. I am happy to share that in 2023, over 1,000 public officers signed up to volunteer their skills for meaningful causes such as being a community befriender for low-income families and mentoring Institute of Technical Education (ITE) students.

48. Under the Public Service-ITE Mentorship Programme, Higher National ITE Certification students like Ryan and Faris interned at GovTech for 20 weeks. GovTech officers Yeo Ken Chuan, Zorel Chen and Supansa Tan noticed the interns’ enthusiasm for learning and ensured ample opportunities for them to grow and eventually perform as product managers with the Public Service.

49. In 2024, we will expand the Public Service for Good movement to include a wider range of social causes and initiatives. This will include skills-based volunteering opportunities that empower our youths and families through mentorship, support seniors in ageing well, and promote sustainability initiatives for a greener Singapore.
    
    Conclusion

50. Past success is no guarantee of future success. I have shared how we are going to evolve the way we operate, develop our capabilities  and partner others for the future. This is an ongoing effort.

51. We must look and plan ahead, even if it means disrupting ourselves. In fact, we would rather disrupt ourselves before other people disrupt us, so that our Public Service can transform and remain relevant to the future needs of Singapore, and it will be a Public Service that all Singaporeans can be proud of.