ENGAGING PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN EMPLOYMENT (ENGAGE) FUND

ENGAGING PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN EMPLOYMENT (ENGAGE) FUND: 13.

Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (a) since its establishment, how many firms have made use of the Engaging Persons with Disabilities in Employment (ENGAGE) Fund and how many workers have benefited

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from it; (b) whether this scheme covers workers with chronic illnesses; (c) whether the amount allocated under this Fund to individual companies is sufficient for them to effect changes to accommodate people with disabilities; and (d) what measures have been taken to promote the use of this Fund and the employment of the disabled.

The Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon) (for the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports): Mr Speaker, Sir, we acknowledge that it is not easy to match persons with disabilities with the right jobs. However, I am pleased to say that we have come a long way in facilitating the employment of persons with disabilities. In the past, persons with disabilities would be kept at home and not given the opportunity to work. Now, persons with disabilities are able to find meaningful employment. For example, today, Bizlink Centre, a central job placement agency funded by MCYS and the National Council for Social Service, manages to place about 250 Persons with Disabilities into open employment annually, while another 1,300 of them are finding employment in our sheltered workshops.

My Ministry firmly believes that employment is the best form of self reliance for the disabled and will encourage all persons with disability, who are work-capable, to seek employment. However, we recognise that people with disabilities do face difficulties in securing employment, not because they are incapable but because they are often not given the opportunity to demonstrate what they are capable of.

That is why my Ministry worked with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency to set up the ENABLE Fund (Engaging Persons with Disabilities in Employment Fund) in July 2006. It aims

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to encourage employers to make that first step of employing people with disabilities.

Through the process, these companies which employ people with disabilities will demonstrate that people with disabilities can also be contributing staff and they are employed not out of compassion, but based on their merit. This is what the disabled community is asking for too.

The ENABLE Fund is one of the many initiatives that my ministry has to encourage employment amongst persons with disabilities. It complements the efforts of Bizlink, which also conducts vocational assessments and onsite job counselling or coaching after placement to help the employee with disability adjust to his new work environment. For example, Natural Cool Holdings, one of the companies that has tapped on ENABLE Fund, has utilised the grant to engage a training officer from Bizlink to coach its staff.

The ENABLE fund is open to employers who are willing to hire four or more persons with disabilities. As at 15th January 2007, 14 companies have tapped on the fund, with 41 workers benefiting from it. There are another seven companies currently at different stages of discussion with the Singapore National Employers' Federation (SNEF), which administers the ENABLE Fund.

As the ENABLE Fund has just been launched, it is still too early to establish if the grant is sufficient. The Employment Sub-committee of the Enabling Masterplan is concurrently gathering feedback from the employers through focus group discussions on how to assist persons with disabilities in getting employment. The committee is a 3P effort, involving the people sector, the private sector and the public sector. In addition to voluntary welfare organisations, the sub-committee also has representatives from the National Trades Union Congress, the Singapore

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Workforce Development Agency, the Singapore National Employers' Federation, the Singapore Human Resource Institute, the Ministry of Manpower and several employers. These agencies are well placed to advise on the ENABLE Fund. If adjustment to the grant is necessary, the Enabling Masterplan Employment Sub-committee will make the appropriate recommendations to my Ministry.

Meanwhile, SNEF has been actively promoting the ENABLE Fund through marketing brochures and posters, and the distribution of marketing collaterals to SNEF member companies.

A Disability Awareness and Public Education campaign has been launched in conjunction with the International Day of Disabled Persons on 3rd December last year. With greater awareness of the ENABLE Fund and public education on the abilities and productivity of persons with disabilities, I hope more companies will recognise the work value of people with disabilities and provide them jobs.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Sir, I would like to ask the Minister of State whether the Ministry is satisfied with only 14 companies and 41 workers benefiting from this Fund. If the Ministry is not satisfied, what else can be done to promote the use of this Fund? Is it a question of lack of awareness, because I do get feedback from HR practitioners and companies that they are not aware of this Fund. Is it a question of lack of awareness, or is it a question of inadequacy of the Fund being allocated, or is it too much restrictions? Could the Minister of State inform the House how it can make better use of this Fund so that we can really make it possible for people with disabilities to work?

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have said just now that this scheme was launched in July last year. It is too

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early to say whether it is effective or not. Besides this Fund, we have worked very closely with NCSS and also the employers' group, including NTUC. Actually, I have just got a report that for the last part of last year, Bizlink has broken the record of successfully matching 300-over disabled people. Previously, it was 260 annually. But last year, they broke the record to over 300.

Besides this ENABLE Fund, as I mentioned just now, my Ministry also announced an Enabling Masterplan Steering Committee last September. I think some of the Members of Parliament are also involved in this Committee. This Committee will wrap up its report in January, and we are looking into some of the new recommendations.

I would also like to inform the House that the ENABLE Fund is about $0.52 million over two years, and the Government also has tax deduction on expenditure on building modifications for those employers employing disabled persons. We also set up an IDA-SPD Infocomm Accessibility Centre that costs about $1.7 million, committed over two years, to help the disabled to also learn IT technology. We hope that they will not be left out because of this digital age. Besides that, we also have vocational assessment and employment placement services that cost about half a million dollars a year. We also have a disability awareness public education campaign fund which my Ministry has set aside about $200,000 a year. So, if we add all these together, it is about $4.7 million. I am not saying that we are very happy with the result. As I mentioned, to help the disabled to get a job is not an easy task. So we need the people sector, the VWOs, the employers, MOM, WDA and so on, to work together to achieve this objective.

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We look forward to receiving this report by the Enabling Masterplan Steering Committee maybe at the end of this month.

Mr Sin Boon Ann: Mr Speaker, I am gratified to note that there are so many schemes available to help the disabled. But I suppose the question really is whether the Government has set itself any benchmarks by which it measures the performance of these various schemes, and that will be key towards the Government helping these disabled people.

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: As I have mentioned, based on the last two or three years' records, the main player - Bizlink - had successfully matched about 260 disabled persons, and they also placed about 1,300 of them in our sheltered workshop. But, last year, they broke the record to over 300 persons. So we hope to achieve that through campaigns and also through our sub-committee discussions and some of the lunches we had with all the employers. Under the Enabling Masterplan Steering Committee, one of the members of the sub-committees who heads this employment is the CEO of a bank, Mr David Wong. He gets a group of people from all walks of life, and these employers represent different groups of people like FairPrice, and so on. We hope that, with the many-helping-hands approach, we can really help the disabled persons to get meaningful jobs.

Mr Sin Boon Ann: The MOS is not responding to my question. My question is really whether the Government intends to set any targets or benchmarks by which it hopes to achieve in respect of these various schemes that are available.

Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon: I wanted to tell the Member, honestly, that, in the past, we did not have a proper record of how many disabled persons in Singapore.

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It is only in the last few years that we work very closely with Kandang Kerbau Hospital, through intervention, that we see that every year, we probably have about 1,400 babies diagnosed with some disabilities. Even with disabilities, there are different ranges of disabilities.

My Ministry is working very hard to keep some meaningful records, at least among the newly-born babies. So, if the Member asked me about the old people or the existing workforce, we really need to develop a meaningful target and KPI. But, of course, we should make sure that we push this through the many-helping-hands approach and the numbers should be increasing.