Cost of Running Day Activity Centre Services for Adults with Disabilities

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what is the current per capita cost of running Day Activity Centre services for adults with disabilities with moderate to high needs; and (b) what is the current per capita grants provided by the Government for such Day Activity Centre services.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Eric Chua) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Mdm Deputy Speaker, the per capita cost of running Day Activity Centre (DAC) services varies depending on each centre’s programming and operational considerations.

Government funding to DACs is tiered according to the care needs of clients. Government funding to DACs is also means-tested, depending on each client’s income level. In FY2022, the average amount of Government grants provided to DACs was about $14,000 per client.

Besides funding from the Government, DACs also receive funding from the community, such as through Tote Board and their own fund-raising.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for always helping this sector. There are issues on the ground. A lot of the charities that are running services for the moderate to high needs individuals with disabilities are facing a lot of challenges on the ground, based on this current funding model. I think the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) has been trying to help, but the challenges remain.

May I request the Ministry to convene a workgroup that comprises MSF, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the disability agencies, to deeply analyse what is the issue, what is the beef all about and why is there so much noise, worries and challenges? And then, to identify what are some alternate, a bit more innovative financing models for Day Activity Centres for disabled adults with moderate to high support needs.

Debating at a very general level and asking Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and replying to PQs at this level is not going to solve matters. The reasons are the costs are indeed high. Although the average grant is about $14,000, some of the costs can go up to about $30,000 per year.

There are also issues like fee cap and you cannot charge that much sometimes. The funding is completely means-tested and therefore, average and higher-income households are often discouraged from using the services. They will then keep their children at home and that is not always the best quality of life. And later on, there will be more costs.

So, the Ministry should really study alternate models such as providing a universal base subsidy, with additional means-testing subsidy. This is what, I think, Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, when he was MSF Minister actually looked at. So, there are some models that can be considered. If we do not solve this problem, then, cohorts of graduates from the special schools with mid to high needs are really going to suffer. So, I hope that Ministry will look into this deeply with those of us who really want to solve this issue.

Mr Eric Chua: Mdm Deputy Speaker, I share the passion of the Member and I really applaud the Member, as we can see, from her very spirited delivery of her supplementary questions. I share that passion as well in doing more for the community, especially for those with moderate to severe needs. I totally agree with her that staying at home, not consuming any of these services, is not going to be the way to go.

She mentioned the point about fee caps. We introduced that in October 2021. That helped about half of the community with some of the fees. The fee cap is anywhere between $20 and $710. Of course, there is much more that can be done. This year, we will be piloting the Enabling Services Hub. We will be launching that by the second half of this year. We will provide learning, social activities as well as respite care at locations that are closer to where persons with disabilities, including, those with moderate needs, as well as their caregivers, live.

We take her points on board and we do look forward to that continued engagement and exploration, with the community, with the Member herself, to see what better we can do for the community.