Services to Help the Poor and Needy

The following question stood in the name of Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports if there is a recommended approach by which help services for the poor and needy by the five CDCs and other helping hands can be better coordinated and communicated to minimise their falling through the social safety net.

Mrs Lina Chiam asked the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports with regard to the $61 million that was disbursed to 61,500 beneficiaries through the national ComCare schemes in 2010, how much did each beneficiary get each month.

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah: Question 1, Sir.

The Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Mdm Halimah Yacob) (for the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports): Mr Speaker, Sir, with your permission, I would like to take Question Nos 1 and 2 together.

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

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Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, the Community Care Endowment Fund (ComCare) provides assistance for low-income and needy Singaporeans. ComCare funding and programmes are delivered through our Community Development Councils (CDCs). ComCare beneficiaries are a diverse mix of needy Singaporeans who need different forms of assistance and for varying periods of time. Examples include elderly persons who are unable to work and need long-term assistance, families who require short-term help because the breadwinners have been retrenched from their jobs, families with members recovering from chronic illnesses and parents who require financial support so that their children can attend preschool. ComCare complements other support which the beneficiary may receive from his family as well as the help provided by various other help agencies in the community.

Mrs Lina Chiam asked about the amount of help each beneficiary receives each month. CDC officers will look at each individual's or family's circumstances, including factors such as household size and composition. Depending on the specific circumstances, the CDCs put together a package of assistance to address their needs. The help can be in form of cash assistance, free or subsidised medical care, vouchers for food, rental, utilities, service and conservancy charges, and preschool and student care subsidies. Because of this, it is not meaningful to provide an average figure on how much each beneficiary receives per month. However, we can give some typical examples.

For a family of four, where the male breadwinner with a homemaker wife and two preschool age children has recently lost his job, his family may be provided with $600 a month in cash allowances as well as vouchers for utilities and service and conservancy charges for three months. In addition, his children can receive up to $340 a month each in preschool subsidies, while the parents look for work. This is on top of the universal childcare subsidies which his children are already entitled to. For a couple where the husband has to stop working temporarily due to ill health and the wife has to be his primary caregiver, but has savings and some support from their children, he may receive $300 in cash a month while he recovers at home. They may also receive assistance for utilities and service and conservancy charges as well as rental assistance if they reside in a rental flat. For a single needy elderly without family support, he or she may receive $400 in cash allowances a month. In addition, there are other support such as free medical treatment at polyclinics and restructured hospitals, rental and utilities vouchers and community help. This additional support can amount to about $1,000 a month.

Ms Denise Phua asked how help services provided by the CDCs and other helping hands can be better coordinated and communicated to minimise their falling through the cracks. We agree on the importance of the CDCs to work with the various help services within their respective districts. Currently, this is done through the ComCare Local Networks. Today, nine ComCare Local Networks bring together various agencies comprising voluntary welfare organisations, citizens consultative committees, other social service agencies and even schools, hospitals and self-help groups. Through these networks, agencies come together to collectively identify and sort out systemic issues as well as work out processes to facilitate the referral of cases among the ComCare Local Network (CLN) partners and closing of referral loops. Working together, they are better placed to decide on the best approach to reach out to and assist the needy within their communities. Nonetheless, there is room for improvement.

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More coordinated and integrated service delivery is an issue which the Ministry is looking at. We are working with our partners to identify ways in which we can adopt an even more client-centric, beneficiary-centric approach in the delivery of social assistance and services to the needy.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Moulmein-Kallang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. I would like to ask the Minister of State if her Ministry would agree to conduct a survey of the different help agencies and find out what is happening now on the ground and how they are coordinated, so as to identify areas of best practices and improvement. I would also like to seek the Minister of State's response as to when the review would be done in order that an action plan can be developed as soon as possible to plug the gaps, so that those who fall through the cracks will be salvaged.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, I want to thank Ms Denise Phua for those questions. On the question of having a survey, I would like to inform Ms Phua that we do surveys on and off, although it may not be on a large scale. We constantly ensure that we test the waters and assess the environment in order to make sure that those who need help are getting the help that is available for them. Of course, we can always look into the possibility of conducting a much more comprehensive survey in order to see whether help is reaching the beneficiaries. In fact, we did a survey of 2,000 low-income households, those in the bottom 20%, and we received some feedback from them. They are the primary targets of our ComCare assistance schemes. We found that one out of 10 of these beneficiaries do feel that they need help but they have some difficulties getting it. What is also surprising to us is that about 60% of them, although they belong to the bottom 20%, indicated that they prefer to be self-sufficient and that they do not need assistance. And so, we do have some surveys on and off to assess the situation on the ground.

On Ms Phua's second question as to when we will complete the review, this is an ongoing process. We share with the Member her sentiments that we should try to do it as quickly as possible, and that is obviously something that we are looking into. Just to reinforce the point that our primary consideration is that those who need help will get the help. They must get the help. This is where we are also strengthening our CLN, by working with the CDCs, our primary agencies, our family service centres and other VWOs. In the longer term, we are looking at other possible structures as well like, developing the service hubs. We have in mind two models. One is more programme-centric and the other is more client-centric, depending on what are the most feasible options available.

Mrs Lina Chiam (Non-Constituency Member): Sir, I would like to thank Mdm Halimah Yacob for the answers. I would like to ask two supplementary questions. First, would the Ministry set up a one-stop assistance centre where officers can work with community and social workers to provide details on all schemes, including those run by charitable and non-governmental organisations so as to achieve on a coordinated and targeted basis, the best way to address the needs of the poor and needy in getting the right help at the right time, like assistance in terms of housing, children's education, medical needs and financial counselling in regard to retrenchment in jobs and advice on dealing with creditors?

Secondly, to ensure that the needy who are poorly-educated and unaware of such schemes do not fall through cracks in our social safety system, will the Ministry set up a committee to brainstorm ideas for more publicity through the mass media on the financial help offered by the ComCare schemes?

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Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, I want to thank Mrs Lina Chiam for those questions. I think the crux of the issue underlining both questions is how we ensure that the needy and those who need help are able to access the help that are available to them. That is the basis of her question for having a one-stop centre and also in having a committee in order to look at these issues. On the question of a one-stop centre, the problem with having just a one-stop centre is that it can become a bottleneck. And especially when we want to make sure that the touch points that we have are spread all over the island and not just within a one-stop centre. Instead of having a one-stop centre, what we have now is a situation where we work very closely with our partners. So, we have nine ComCare Local Networks under the CDCs and through those ComCare Local Networks, we bring together all the touch points needed throughout the island. So, there are the CDCs, the family service centres, and the VWOs dealing with different areas of needs of our beneficiaries and our needy persons. All of them are brought together under the ComCare Local Networks. The ComCare Local Networks act as a focal point where it also provides a platform for all the various agencies providing help to the needy to come together to discuss and share experiences and notes on how to extend assistance and help to the needy. Instead of a one-stop centre, what we have in mind, as I mentioned earlier, is to develop service hubs. Service hubs are structures where we either have it as programme-centric or client-centric located in one location, and where we bring all the service providers together. For instance, if we need to take care of the elderly, we need to bring all the providers together, whether it is the family service centre or the VWOs taking care of the elderly needs. They will then be co-located. As Members are aware, a structure like this takes a bit of time to develop but this is one of it.

The Member's second question is whether we can have a committee. We all know very extensively and comprehensively the issues, challenges and problems that we face. It is not necessary for us to set up another committee to look into this issue. What we need to do is to identify what are some of the gaps, which we are doing right now, and also to address those concerns and issues. I must say that looking at the structures that we have, it is for the moment able to reach out to the needy and the beneficiaries. There are areas where we need to do more outreach, particularly for those who are at the bottom 20%. One out of 10 in our survey says they do face some difficulties. This is where we will then work very closely with our grassroots organisations and VWOs to work out an outreach strategy for them.

Mr David Ong (Jurong): Sir, I thank the Minister of State for her reply. We are grateful for the service hubs and the CLNs, but I think what is probably lacking is an integrated information or database of those who are in need of help. Sometimes, we may or may not know who had been helped. I would like to ask the Ministry if there are any plans for a more client-centric approach in integrating information from the various agencies and make the information more accessible to the CDCs and the grassroots, so that those who come to us for help can be helped quickly and holistically.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: I thank the Member for that question. We do actually have a database of those who need help and have come to seek help, not just from the Members of Parliament and the advisors, but also from the various VWOs. This database is accessible. Sometimes, the gaps are dependent on what information each individual advisor puts into the database. But the database is there. We are currently also looking at how to further enhance and improve the database.

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Mr Speaker: Ms Irene Ng – last question.

Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong (Tampines): Sir, the Minister of State mentioned that there are needy residents who prefer to be self-reliant and refuse welfare help. Can I ask the Minister of State for an assessment of how big this group is from the group of needy residents that have been reached out to? Also, what is the MCYS' approach towards groups of residents who are publicly going out to seek help such as by selling tissue papers or appearing very hard-up in public but, when approached by MCYS, refuse public welfare?

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, I just want to repeat the call that we have made repeatedly. If there are any such cases of needy residents or Singaporeans that any Member of Parliament comes across, do please refer them to us, and we will follow up or refer them to our five CDCs, so that they can also follow up with the relevant assistance and support. With regard to some Singaporeans whom we feel may need help, but they feel they can manage on their own, I think the real issue is this:That we should also respect people's desires and wishes.

As I was growing up, I belonged to the bottom 10% of the population. Very often, when I was in school, my teachers would tell me, "Why do you not go and ask your mother to go and get social welfare or social assistance?" But my mother would be terribly horrified with any suggestion that she should go and get social welfare or social assistance. Because when my father died when I was eight years old, my mother said that so long as she has two hands and two legs, we will all survive.

So, we need to respect the desires of people, even though they may be at the bottom 20%, when they say that they want to have ownership of their lives. They want to decide whether they want to seek help or not to seek help. We cannot say that just because you are at the bottom 20%, we must therefore extend our help to you regardless of whether you want it or not. I think that should not be the philosophy that we should adopt, but rather, we should adopt a philosophy where we provide them with the dignity, the support and the level and kind of assistance that they need.