Guidelines for Standards Relating to Full-time National Servicemen's Accommodation in Camps

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Defence what are the current guidelines for standards relating to full-time National Servicemen's accommodation in camps in terms of (i) the number of occupants per room (ii) the number of occupants per floor (iii) the amount of living space per occupant in terms of square metres, excluding shared living facilities (iv) ventilation requirements and (v) the ratio of occupants to available toilets.

The Senior Minister of State for Defence (Mr Heng Chee How) (for the Minister for Defence): Mr Deputy Speaker, accommodation facilities in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) are designed to be functional and cost-effective in supporting our operational and training requirements and meeting the health and well-being needs of its servicemen. The facilities are adequate, and comfortable and benchmarked to the guidelines of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) in areas including safety, ventilation design and sanitary provisions.

The number of personnel per room ranges from two to 10, depending on the size of the rooms. On top of the shared living facilities, the individual sleeping and resting space for each serviceman is about seven square metres. The rooms are designed to make good use of natural ventilation and daylight. Typically, a four-person room has two ceiling fans and larger rooms may have more fans installed. Toilet and shower facilities are equipped with individual shower and toilet cubicles as well as urinals, with the guideline of five men to one toilet cubicle and eight men to one urinal.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Thank you, Sir. Could I just ask Senior Minister of State how new are these guidelines, whether they have been revised during COVID-19 to take into account the infection measures? Second, how regularly are these guidelines reviewed?

Mr Heng Chee How: I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. As I alluded to in my answer, our norms are developed in compliance with national regulations. So, every time that there will be improvements or changes to these regulations, then certainly, we will take them in to make sure that we remain up-to-date in our provisions.

In terms of the improvements or adjustments that we have made to render our facilities more pandemic-ready, that too has been made. For continued operational readiness and effectiveness, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF)/SAF buildings and infrastructure must be pandemic-ready. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a proactive approach by the Army to procure additional fans and air purifiers, distributed across the Army to increase ventilation in office and accommodation spaces. In new projects or when existing infrastructure is refreshed, a key design consideration is flexibility to allow for adaptation to dynamic requirements.

Among the considerations to ensure pandemic-readiness are: one, space planning for safe social distancing for crowd and transmission control; two, provisions for plexiglass or shield equivalence as separators; and three, anti-microbial coatings on common touchpoints.

Natural ventilation is a key design consideration for MINDEF/SAF accommodation spaces. In August 2021, NEA concluded a study of MINDEF/SAF accommodation spaces which assessed the adequacy of ventilation in rooms using CO 2 samples as proxy. This study found that these naturally ventilated accommodations spaces had good readings of less than 800 PPM CO 2 . In addition, relevant MINDEF/SAF departments have been incorporated as part of the NEA/BCA biosecure built environment workstream which deals extensively at the whole-of-Government level to meet SS553 and SS554 air quality standards.

In the event of outbreaks, MINDEF/SAF also has protocols, such as: one, demarcating ring-fencing facilities; two, instituting isolation plans; and three, implementing medical plans to deal with the potential emergence of clusters.

Mr Deputy Speaker: No further supplementary questions? Mr Lim Biow Chuan, next question.