Next-Generation Frontline Policing Model

Ms Sylvia Lim asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs in light of the change in the community policing model announced by the Ministry in November 2011 that will be implemented within the next three to five years (a) in what ways is the current community policing model deemed inadequate or not optimal to meet current or anticipated policing needs; and (b) what are the outcomes that the public should expect the Next-Generation Frontline Policing Model to deliver.

The Minister, Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Home Affairs and Second Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr S Iswaran) (for the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs): Mr Speaker, Sir. I thank the Member for her question. On 14 November last year, I announced that the Police will be embarking the Next-Generation Frontline Policing Model and laid out its main considerations and the features. And so, let me reiterate the feature points.

Our Frontline Community Policing Model has to keep pace with the changing environment, demographic trends and also the changing general community. We started with the Neighbourhood Police Post (NPP) system in the 1980s, as Members will recall, and moved on to the Neighbourhood Policing Centre (NPC) Model in the 1990s – 1997 to be precise. The NPC model has been successful in supporting our crime fighting efforts.

The fundamental philosophy has always been that the community and the Police are partners in keeping our neighbourhoods safe. This remains unchanged. However, policing must adapt to changes in the operating environment and this model is an effort in that direction.

In particular, the complexion of our community has changed. Mature estates now have more senior citizens who live on their own in several instances. Newer estates tend to have small nuclear families who moved in recently and may not yet have formed deep neighbourly bonds that we are familiar with in the older estates. Singapore's population is also now more diverse with new migrants. Therefore, we will have to invest more to engage the community, in a more customised and tailored manner, so as to sustain and strengthen this partnership between the Police and the community.

Today, technology also offers more opportunities with solutions that are more capable and cost effective than in the past. We will therefore further leverage on technology, and this will also enable us to deploy our Police officers in a more strategic and targeted way to fight crime and to serve residents better.

We expect these changes to enhance the Singapore Police Force's ability to prevent, deter and detect crime, and translate into a better sense of security for Singaporeans in their neighbourhood. We will announce more details of this Model at the upcoming Committee of Supply debates.

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Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied): Sir, I have four supplementary questions for the Minister. I read the speech quite carefully in November and I noted that he mentioned then that under this new Frontline Model, the NPCs will be better able to fight crimes in the community such as harassment by unlicensed moneylenders. So, my first question is whether he is actually saying that under the current system, somehow, the NPCs are not able to fully respond to this problem of harassment by unlicensed moneylenders.

Second question is that when the NPCs were first rolled out, there was a promise that they would be the origin of dedicated resources for pro-active policing. So, my question is: does the Government assess now that, that has not been fully implemented and it is not able to actually marshal the resources to handle community problems, which it was originally intended to do?

My third supplementary question is, the Minister mentioned in November that the New Model will envisage Police officers be assigned specific beats so that they will have more intimate knowledge of the ground and cultivate long and lasting ties. My question is: are we now going back to the form of patrolling that used to be in place under the NPP system where we have more intimate street patrols, vertical policing?

My last question is concerning NPPs. In the speech in November, the Minister mentioned that we will leverage more on technology for the NPPs so that officers could be re-deployed. Sir, my question is: what is the fate of the NPPs? Does it mean that they become unmanned, or is there a vision of what it will become under this new model?

Mr S Iswaran: Mr Speaker, Sir. I thank the Member for her supplementary questions. I will endeavour to keep it brief to avoid another Ministerial Statement. Firstly, the NPCs – and I think the specific point the Member has raised is whether this is a specific response to unlicensed moneylending activity and whether it is a comment on the NPCs' ability to cope with that. If the Member recalls, at the last sitting, there was a Parliamentary Question (PQ) on this specific point and one of her GRC colleagues has also raised this point. And I think overall, the Police has already undertaken significant steps to deal with the problem of unlicensed moneylending (UML). The data is on the downtrend and it has been so in the last two years but the Police are continuing in that effort. So, this has got no specific comment or inference to be drawn with respect to the effort against UML. That remains a priority for the Police force and that has been addressed through a systematic and targeted effort.

Secondly, the question is: is this a comment on the availability or allocation of resources to past community policing efforts, which I believe is the thrust of the Member's second supplementary question. The answer is: clearly, we are adapting to different circumstances. Now, in this respect, and as I emphasised in my earlier statement, the demographic changes we see on the ground – some of the structural relationships on the ground and also the new type of residents coming in – necessitate a different kind of policing response. The Police has assessed that this is the way forward in moving into the new regime of frontline policing. In doing that, there are different implications. Some rules will be transformed in the Police. Some rules will be re-defined. We will enhance certain responsibilities, maybe certain things may be taken over by other technology and other solutions. So, the net impact is, there will be more resources required on the ground for this and that is something that the Police and the Ministry of Home Affairs are working on to staff up. But that in itself is not a comment that previously they were under-resourced. And I think the key point here is that there are some specific changes envisaged in order to better deal with anticipated and some of the emerging challenges, that is where this effort is focused on.

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For the specific beats: is this a reversion to the old NPP model? The answer must be that when we move from an NPP model to an NPC model, the idea was really to allow the Police greater professional flexibility in responding to challenges on the ground on a larger area. The NPPs, as all Members will be well aware, are very localised, specific locations and, therefore, the staffing and manning levels are also quite tight; which means they have limited capability to respond. When you elevate this to a level, not to that of a division, but it is somewhere in between, like the Neighbourhood Police Centres, what you do is you empower the Police Commander to make important tactical decisions, how to deploy his men in response to different needs on the ground. So, policing beats: yes, this is going to be an important part of that effort going forward. But how you deploy, what frequencies, where and what times, and being able to switch from area to area – these are the kinds of flexibilities we will endow the Police Commander to have in this new model.

And, finally, if we are using new technology, what is the fate of the NPPs? The Member said that she read the speech carefully. If she had read it carefully, she would also know that we are working on an e-NPP model that would be part of the process, going forward.