Speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at Public Service Leadership Advance on 30 Sep 2013

“A Trusted Public Service with Citizens at the Centre”

DPM Teo Chee Hean

Mr Peter Ong
Head Civil Service

Colleagues and friends

A TRUSTED PUBLIC SERVICE

Singapore is in a new phase. We are heading in a new direction. We are making strategic shifts. I set out some of these strategic shifts at the NDR, which was in fact here, a month plus ago - giving everyone a share in Singapore’s success, strengthening safety nets, keeping society open and mobile. The next step beyond articulating these priorities are to translate these shifts into policies, and implement programmes that improve peoples’ lives. To do that, we need a good Public Service and good Public Sector Leaders (PSLs). Therefore today’s PSL Advance, to discuss how the Public Service should gear itself up for the future, and what your role as PSLs should be to make this happen.

One major determinant of our success will be trust. In other words, trust in the Government. Trust that the Government understands Singaporeans’ needs, trust that the Government is committed to Singaporeans, and trust that the Government will remain a steward for the public good. How can the Public Service work to strengthen this trust? It needs to do so by working together as one Public Service, with Singaporeans at the centre of what they do. It needs to do so by upholding the highest standards of integrity. Let me take them one at a time.

ONE PUBLIC SERVICE WITH SINGAPOREANS AT THE CENTRE

The Public Service must operate as one integrated whole, fully committed to improving Singaporeans’ lives. Our policies have to change with time, to keep up with changing aspirations and needs. Our organisation also has to change with time, to provide Singaporeans with a seamless, functional service. So we are adapting the structure of our Government to meet these new needs as they arise. We are creating new agencies, e.g. MCCY, Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA), to address new priorities and create new focus areas. Ideally, of course, we have one agency per focus area, and one job belongs to one agency - education goes to MOE, social issues go to MSF – the agency has a clear focus and the problems get the appropriate attention. But reality is always messier than that. Issues increasingly straddle multiple agencies, because they are complex and inter-related. It is so if you are handling climate change, population, or if you are trying to create economic transformation. And ditto for our new priorities. If you are talking about uplifting the poor, that is not just a responsibility for MSF. MOE is involved, educating the children of poor families; MOM is involved, looking after low income workers; MND is involved, making sure housing is affordable, and giving a boost especially at the lower income. Multiple agencies have to come together to achieve a single objective. We cannot put all of these into a ministry for the poor. Likewise, MediShield Life, including MOH of course, but also MOF, who must decide how much money we can spend, how to spend it, how to fund it; MSF, what do you do with families which may not be able to afford the premiums when they go up; and so on. So the service has to be adapted, focused on the priorities, but at the same time, able to work across the whole service and bring attention to bear onto one multi-faceted problem from many directions. We have to be able to work seamlessly across agencies and with one another. Taking the customers’ perspective, and not just your own agency’s view, and implementing policies well.

One Public Service

So to start off with, a civil service has to work seamlessly across multiple agencies. Whatever your internal organisation, whatever our internal organisation, whatever our division of responsibilities, we have to present a seamless, coherent experience to the people. Our complexities should be transparent to them because it is frustrating for public to deal with multiple agencies and conflicting policies. Over time, the public will lose trust in the Service if they cannot figure this out. Even for us, figuring out which agency is responsible for which job and which problem, and who is to take the lead, we need a lot of argy-bargy and organisation and discussion. What more somebody from outside the system, trying to find his way around?

I will just give you one, not so serious, but rather telling issue - animal issues. In this case, the animal is a snake. A man called NEA to report that he had spotted a snake near Tanglin International Centre. This is a real story. The NEA officer asked, “Was the snake in a public park or in the building?” The caller said, “No, it was near the building.” (Officer) “Was it moving toward the building or away?” (Caller) “Toward the stairs of the building.” (Officer) “Where is it now?” (Caller) “I don’t know. I was scared so I ran away.” (Officer) “I need to know where the snake is, so I can escalate this to the right agency.”(Caller) “But I ran away.” (Officer) “Okay sir, I will take care of it.” So the officer put down the phone, and called someone else to catch the snake. A trainee officer was listening in to the conversation, and asked why she had asked so many questions. The officer said, “Depending on the location of a snake, different government agencies may be involved. If it is in a park, it could be NParks. If it is in a drain, it is PUB. If it is endangered, AVA. If it is dangerous, we may call the police!” The trainee asked, “So who did you call to settle the matter?” The officer said, “ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society).” None of the above! It is an Animal Welfare Group, an NGO. So snakes are complicated problems, I think birds used to be equally complicated problems, it depended if it was a crow or not, which agency was responsible for it. But the Service has sorted this particular problem out, and AVA now fronts all animal issues. There is one ‘animal’ number for the public to call - 1800 476 1600! So we have made some progress, but I think we can do somewhat more in other areas, e.g. licensing start-ups involves multiple chops and integrating agency masterplans is also a complex matter. We must be able to put this all together and make it all seamless to the public and function as one Civil Service.

Being Customer-Oriented

Secondly, we have to be customer-oriented. We have to see things from the perspective of those we are serving, those who are on the receiving end when we make and carry out policies. We have to understand the realities on the ground to identify and solve problems before they become serious and not discover them too late. This is very difficult to do. You cannot take every comment at face value, or accede to every appeal. It is your job to listen, judge and decide. You have to distinguish between requests which are valid and should be met, and complaints which are self-serving or unjustified and must not be accommodated. You also have the opposite problem. The opposite problem is when you are the regulator and the government agency, and the group you are regulating does not want to offend you and does not want to offend the powers that be. It happens with all regulator-regulated relationships. MAS is in this position, URA, BCA, many others. Then, trying to get candid and valuable feedback becomes difficult. Because the person who is regulated does not want to offend the regulator and will not tell you the honest truth, even when he is not happy, even when things are not going well. You have to go that extra mile to build that extra trust, to get people to open up and to tell you what is really happening. Then you can make up your mind about what you need to do, based on facts, based on reality, based on what is working or not working on the ground.

It is not easy but I am glad to see that agencies are making an effort to do this. For example, MAS and IE Singapore have been amending the Securities and Futures Act and the Commodity Trading Act, to bring our regulations on commodity derivatives trading into line with international standards. It is an abstruse subject, but it involves a community of traders, businesses out there, and you have to get the rules right. IE and MAS have been engaging companies through roundtables, to understand their concerns and clarify the new regulatory framework. They took pains to reassure companies that they genuinely wanted to hear their views and wanted honest views. The efforts did work, because the companies provided IE and MAS with useful feedback that helped to refine their thinking on the regulations. The companies felt that they had been given a fair hearing and were more prepared to work with the agencies to develop and refine the rules together. So it is important for you to know what the ground thinks and needs, and be responsive in solving problems that people or businesses encounter.

But at the same time, you must uphold our national interests and wider common good. You cannot be captured by special interest groups, or the group you are regulating, or your own bureaucratic perspective. You have got to try to maintain a national perspective, and solve things which make sense from an overall Singapore point of view. If the policy is not working – fix it. If the policy is painful but necessary, like tightening foreign worker inflows, which is making it painful for some businesses – then you have to find ways to mitigate the downsides, communicate our intent, fine tune the policies, smooth off the rough edges wherever possible, but hold our ground on the core of the policies. So that is in term of policies. But policies are on paper unless they are implemented well.

Implementing Policies Well

Policy, ultimately, is implementation. It is what happens that counts. If it is not translated into specific programmes and well carried out, it will just remain a piece of paper. When you have got it implemented, you also have to monitor results and trends carefully, so we know when we need to change our approach. You have to take special care in the cases where you have outsourced the policy or the implementation, because you have not really outsourced the responsibility or the problem. You must make sure that whoever is the outsourced vendor implements it properly, and has a proper system, whether it is service level agreements, monitoring, or some cross checking. To know that just because it is outsourced does not mean out of sight, out of mind. Take one example where implementation is going to be a challenge - MediShield Life. Everybody supports the principle. But implementation is going to involve many trade-offs - higher premiums versus coverage, subsidies for elderly population versus low-income families. You have to choose. You cannot make perfect, ideal schemes. We have to make compromises and we must decide what is workable and what achieves the main objectives of MediShield Life. We have got to work out the details carefully and get them right, so that the final result is a positive one. That is why MOH is taking the time to consult the public, engage insurance companies and work out the specific details. And in the process, have the public educated so that when we implement it, it achieves its objective.

As PSLs, you play important roles in these issues. You have got to further whole-of-Government priorities, and not just look at it from your department’s point of view. You have to engage the public and stakeholders. You have to design and implement well thought out schemes to achieve the policy intent. It is because you must have that feel, to go beyond principles and statements, that we have broadened our PSL team in the Service, to include domain experts and professional leaders in specific sectors. That is why today, for the PSL Advance, we have people from across the Civil Service, from the stat boards, from the people who are responsible for specific agencies, so that you understand where you fit in and what your role may be.

Services

When you have the implementation worked out, the implementation where - as the Americans say it, the rubber meets the road - is done through service delivery. You may not be delivering the service yourself because direct contact is usually handled by mid-level and junior staff. But as PSLs, you have to take responsibility because many of you head frontline agencies. The daily contact with the public is intense. ICA has half a million people at the checkpoints daily. Hospitals have 30,000 patients come in - outpatients, inpatients. As a whole, in one quarter, the second quarter this year, the Government received 1.6 million emails, phone calls and letters - one every five seconds! The frontline job is intense, is important, and is also very hard. Public expectations are rising. You give a reply - you cannot wait and then send a letter. You see an email - they expect a response within 24 hours. You give a negative reply - it is unlikely that it will be the last word. There will be appeals; there will be further argy-bargy before the matter is settled. MPs see this at our Meet the People Sessions too. We see fewer cases than the frontline staff, maybe 50 or 100 a week, but still, we sense the same expectations, the same pressures, and the same desire to have that problem solved. To the person facing the problem, every problem is urgent. Citizens will form their impressions of the Government from their experience with frontline services. One unhappy encounter can colour perceptions for a long time. The frontline job is important, it is tough, it is done by junior officers, and some of them have been doing it for years. I think they are doing good work and I would like to thank them for their hard work and for their dogged, determined and overall high quality service.

As PSLs, your job is to pay personal attention to service quality and not just to high policy. Train and develop your frontline staff. Demand high service standards of them, and give them the resources to achieve these standards. Back them up with information and support, with decisions when decisions are called, and moral backing when they need encouragement and when they come under pressure. Inspire them to give of their best, and stand up for them when they need you to be with them. We expect public officers to be courteous and respectful, and expect the same of the public who come to deal in our Government, ministries and stat boards. Of course, if appeals fail or if there is poor service, people will be unhappy and disappointed. But I think there is a certain basic courtesy that is expected when a counter staff meets a member of the public. It is unacceptable to make unreasonable demands of the staff down there when things do not go your way. Unfortunately, such cases do happen. There are many example, we have cited some of them. If you take just one conspicuous area, you have motorists who have been called over for traffic violations, they get angry, and they abuse the officers. Particularly, these are not the police officers themselves, but Certis Cisco officers engaged by LTA and URA to enforce traffic violations and parking violations. I think this is not acceptable. There has to be courtesy and there has to be correctness. If anybody abuses government officers who are doing their duty properly, we have to take action against that. The government officer must behave properly, so too must the member of the public.

Improving policies and service quality will enhance trust in the Government. It shows that the Service understands Singaporeans’ concerns, and is on their side. It will encourage Singaporeans to work with the Government, with the Service, and support our programmes and we can achieve our goals together. That is what it means for the Public Service to act as one, with Singaporeans at the centre.

INTEGRITY

Also critical to maintaining public trust is upholding highest standards of integrity. It is something that we have built up and maintained painstakingly over many, many years. It is the basic genetic code that enables our whole system to work. Because there is integrity in our Public Service, therefore, businesses can compete fairly instead of relying on improper influence; therefore, public officers can have the discretion and authority to manage huge projects, exercising their judgement and knowledge instead of going strictly by formulas which may or may not fit the needs of the job. We trust them, we empower them, we hold them to account. Singaporeans know that the doors are open. If they work hard, even if they do not have family backgrounds or personal connections, they can make it. It does not depend on ‘guan xi’. And so when former-MM celebrated his 90th birthday and we gave him a little party in Parliament, he spoke for a few minutes, and had only one 90th birthday wish - that the Singapore Government continues to be clean and honest, and to uphold the highest moral standard, and the Ministers and the MPs have to set the example and maintain that standard themselves. It is the critical factor that enables the whole system to work, and enables us to be different from so many countries in the world, especially so many countries in Asia.

One reason we have been able to maintain a clean system is pay. We pay public servants properly, in line with the quality of the officers and the value of their contributions. We will continue to maintain this policy. In return, we insist on high standards of performance and integrity. If an officer has discovered to have been dishonest, we will punish him to the full extent of the law. We will maintain this principle too, even when it is embarrassing to the Government. It is more important than ever to maintain a clean system in Singapore. The Public Service is bigger, the job is more complex. We have more transactions, and bigger sums involved. The span of control is wider. We need to decentralise our organisation and devolve authority so that officers can respond more quickly, appropriately and flexibly to needs on the ground. But at the same time, we must complement this with central oversight, proper procedures and effective but not stifling checks and balances.

This last year has seen a string of high profile cases involving public officers, including some senior officers. We have had sex for favours scandals, procurement lapses and fraud cases. Uncovered, prosecuted, and dealt with in the public. Each case has been widely reported. Taken together, it raises the question of whether there is something fundamentally wrong with the Service. We have reviewed this in depth. Overall, the trend for cases has not worsened. Public sector cases still make up about one fifth of total corruption cases, about the same as it used to be. But every single case involving a public servant and public money is one case too many. In each instance that has come up last year, we have identified the causes and lapses, and fixed them. Where it was due to negligence of officers – we have disciplined officers who should have performed their duties better. Where weaknesses in processes were found – we have tightened up the processes and sometimes we have extrapolated to tighten up further to deal with future problems, and you have heard some of the new rules in the briefing this morning. Where there have been criminal acts – we have taken legal and disciplinary action against culprits to punish them and deter others.

But beyond these individual cases and the individual acts we are taking, we have to strengthen the system to uphold our reputation for integrity and incorruptibility and to dispel any doubts that standards have gone down. So we are tightening up rules and compliance to ensure probity, without miring ourselves in bureaucracy. We are learning best practices from other large organisations, be it civil services, international organisations or MNCs. Other organisations face the same challenges we do – how to keep the system straight, how to keep people doing the right thing in the organisation, how to detect and deter rogue behaviour. I think we can pick up ideas from them. We can use technology to minimise abuse too - mine data for irregularities, install digital safeguards. Nearly everything is on the computer, if something is happening off the computer, we would also want to know why. I am glad the Public Service is doing this, e.g. teaching Code of Conduct, tightening the IMs on procurement, introducing new regulations on casino visits. We have to continue adjusting and adapting our rules, and keeping abreast of the new needs and circumstances.

Ultimately, integrity is not about systems and processes, but values. The Government must have a culture which does not tolerate any wrong doing or dishonesty. The public officers must have the right values – Service, Integrity, Excellence, as the Civil Service puts it. Each officer and the Service as a whole must take pride in being clean and incorrupt. This is your command responsibility. You cannot devolve it to your subordinates, or leave it to procurement and financial officers. You are the boss, you are in charge and you have to make sure that it is happening well in your organisation. Take the lead yourself to put in place the right systems, to enforce the rules fairly and firmly, to deal with mistakes decisively and openly. Most importantly, to lead by example and model the right values for our staff – to “know the way, go the way, show the way”.

CONCLUSION

Trust is essential for the Government to operate. Without basic trust in the Government, none of our plans can make it off the paper and be realised. There will be no end to the demands for more reviews, or doubts about whether a policy is to benefit those with connections rather than the public good. Trust is especially necessary when the Government has to make difficult or unpopular decisions, e.g. restructuring industries or raising public transport fares, which in Government will happen and the Government has to do from time to time. That is also why the Government takes a firm stance to protect our integrity against unfounded attacks. If attacks are made, they are either correct, in which case something serious must happen; or they are baseless, in which case they have to be challenged, because otherwise, it will slowly erode the trust and integrity of the Public Service and Government.

I am proud of this Public Service. I think every civil servant in Singapore should stand tall and be proud of what we are doing. We have passionate public officers which are committed to serve. We are doing the right things for Singapore and Singaporeans. By any international standard, we have an outstanding Public Service. But by Singapore standards, we continue to demand that we do better. How the public perceives the civil service is in your hands. It will emerge from their daily interactions with public officers and in the way you exemplify the Public Service values of integrity, service and excellence.

So I look forward to continue to working with all of you, all your ministries and agencies, to forge our new way forward and to build a better Singapore with an outstanding Public Service. Thank you very much!