Recruitment of Police Officers

Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs whether the Singapore Police Force (SPF) intends to increase the recruitment of more police officers so as to provide better enforcement of law and order in Singapore.

Mr Teo Chee Hean: Over the past 10 years, the Police Force has grown from about 9,000 officers to about 10,300 officers, an increase of about 15%. This number includes uniformed officers and civilians.

In terms of Police officers, SPF has seen an increase of 10% in its uniformed staff strength over the same period, from 8,010 to 8,780. SPF has recruited an annual average of 480 Police officers in the past three years, and its establishment is currently 96% filled.

The Police Force has grown over the years to build new operational capabilities and to support the roll-out of new initiatives. Since 2008, a total of 1,000 new posts have been added to the Police to support areas, such as the Community Policing Scheme (COPS), investigations at the Police land divisions and Safer Roads Singapore.

While growing operational demands will mean that more may have to be recruited in future, we are mindful that there are natural limits to how much further we can grow the Police Force, without compromising the standards that are expected of our officers. Indeed, we will find it challenging to recruit enough officers and enough good officers, due to our ageing population and fewer Singaporeans entering the labour force each year. It is, therefore, important that we not only look at adding to quantity but also make the best use of our Police Officers by deepening their capabilities, by deploying superior operating models and strategies and by leveraging more on technology as a force multiplier and recruiting civilian officers to take on specialised roles, such as in crime scene investigation, where such civilian officers can be deployed to complement uniformed officers. SPF has also raised the retirement age of its officers and re-employed officers beyond retirement age, where appropriate.

Apart from regular officers, the Police Force has a committed Voluntary Constabulary numbering 767, and 3,688 Full-Time National Servicemen and 25,133 Operationally-Ready National Servicemen who also play important policing roles.