Impact of Amendments to Maintenance of Parents Bill

Mr Seah Kian Peng asked the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (a) if he will give an update on the impact of the amendments to the Maintenance of Parents Bill since the amendments were passed in November 2010; and (b) since January 2011, whether the number of applications to the Tribunal for Maintenance of Parents for maintenance orders has increased and whether the resolution rate has improved.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong) (for the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports): Mr Speaker, Sir, the amended Maintenance of Parents Act (MPA) aims to promote a "conciliation first" approach, with legal action as a last resort. So the legislation provides for the Commissioner for the Maintenance of Parents to be the first port of call for first-time potential applicants to play a more active role in helping parents and children resolve maintenance disputes through conciliation.

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It also empowers the Commissioner's Office and also the Tribunal to access information from Government agencies to identify and also locate adult children, and assessing their means to maintain their parents.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I am pleased to report that the impact of the revisions has been encouraging. In 2011, 286 elderly parents had approached the Commissioner for assistance on maintenance matters. Eighty-five percent of these cases received from January till October 2011 were resolved through mediation, which means that both the parents and adult children were able to amicably arrive at a consensus on maintenance issues. This is an improvement over the previous year of 78%. A larger proportion of families are also having their disputes resolved by the Commissioner, without them having to resort to legal action at the Tribunal.

Correspondingly, the Tribunal recorded a lower number of maintenance applications. There were 110 applications for maintenance filed in 2011, as compared to 183 applications filed in 2010. So there is a decrease of 40% which is a good sign. Even at the Tribunal stage, it is heartening to see that 41% of the applications for maintenance were settled by mediation.

With better access to information, the Commissioner was able to expeditiously make contact with over 360 adult children and invited them to attend conciliation sessions. This would have been difficult prior to the amendments made to the MPA.

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade): I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for his answer, and I am very happy to hear the encouraging results. I have two supplementary questions. The first is on the screening provisions which we have now included in the amended Act. Would the Senior Parliamentary Secretary share with us which are the agencies that this has been applied to? Secondly, it is on the other important aspect which the new amended Act proposed, ie, the need to actively focus on case management aspects of cases. These were cases that were settled through mediation and also cases which were settled through the Tribunal. I want to ask for an update on this as well.

Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong: I thank the Member for the two supplementary questions. For the first supplementary question, the screening process involved all the Government agencies, particularly agencies such as CPF Board, Ministry of Manpower, etc. When the mediation process is in progress, the Commissioner's Office will contact these agencies to obtain the necessary information. So far, the agencies have been very cooperative in providing the relevant information to facilitate the mediation process.

As for the second question on the approach to case management, the Commissioner's Office has always taken a very proactive approach, in a human-centric approach, in trying to facilitate the interactions and also the communication between the parties in dispute. It is more or less like a case management approach where emphasis is given to help the parents and also their adult children to find a middle ground, a ground for consensus so as to settle the mediation amicably.

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