CIVIL SERVICE COLLEGE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Deputy Prime Minister (BG Lee Hsien Loong): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Civil Service College is currently a department under the Public Service Division, comprising the Institute of Public Administration and Management, the Institute of Policy Development and the Civil Service Consulting Group. The College is the key supplier of training and consultancy services to the civil service.

The Government intends to fold in the Personnel Guidance Unit, another department under the Public Service Division and restructure the combined entity into a new statutory board under the Public Service Division to be known as the Civil Service College.

The objective of the Bill is to provide the legislative framework for the formation of this new statutory board. The Government places great emphasis on the training of civil servants. Our target is to give every officer at least 100 hours of training per year. Public sector organisations cannot deliver effective, high level of service unless public servants are well-trained. It is not only about equipping officers with work-based skills to better perform their duties, but with management tools for organisational development. We also want to imbue in them the appropriate values and mindset as public servants.

In today's intense competition for talent, good people consider more than pay and career prospects when deciding whether to take up a job. They also look for avenues for further training and personal development in the course of their work. The public service will not be able to recruit and retain good officers if it does not offer them meaningful opportunities to be trained and developed for challenging assignments.

The existing Civil Service College plays a key role in training civil servants. It offers a wide spectrum of programmes. There are courses on management issues, including human resource management and employee performance management, and operational matters like use of IT in the public service, service quality, finance and accounting.

Other courses focus on leadership and policy development. The College also provides consultancy services on public sector reform initiatives, promoting organisational, people and system development through programmes like learning organisation, people developer standards, the ISO 9000 and the SQA.

But the frontiers of the knowledge economy are constantly advancing and our operating environment is rapidly changing. Public officers have to keep their knowledge and skills up to date to stay relevant and productive. We thus have to continually improve existing programmes offered by the College, as well as to develop new programmes to meet fresh requirements. We also have to pay attention to the delivery of training programmes and the organisational structure of the College. Our aim is to make training more accessible to public sector organisations and help them in their organisational development.

This is the background to the plan to convert the Civil Service College into a self-funding statutory board under PSD. The College's activities, such as new training programmes and consultancy projects, typically have long gestation periods. The College has to bear the developmental cost first and recoup them when the projects are completed or the new programmes are rolled out. Some of the College's programmes would then have application beyond the civil service. As a statutory board, the College can internalise their cost and revenues from its activities and so maintain more flexible control over its finances.

From the point of view of human resources, the demand for the Civil Service College's training and consultancy services is not constant over time. The College needs the flexibility to assemble teams of competent trainers and consultants, in sync with its work schedules, including employing them on short-term basis for specific projects. The College will be able to do this much more effectively as a statutory board rather than as a Government department.

The Personnel Guidance Unit is presently not part of the College. It provides consultancy services and applied organisational psychology. It helps public sector organisations select new recruits, as well as provide programmes for organisational diagnosis and personnel development. These are closely related to the Civil Service College's broader consultancy services on promoting organisational excellence. Putting the Personnel Guidance Unit together with the College will enable the College to provide an integrated range of services spanning assessments, selection, training and organisational development.

Let me now turn to the main aspects of the Bill. The board of the statutory board shall consist of a Chairman and 5 to 15 other members, all of whom shall be appointed by the Minister, as provided by clause 5. The statutory board will take on the existing functions of the Civil Service College and Personnel Guidance Unit. The primary function of the statutory board will be to provide training for public servants and contribute to the public service's organisational development efforts. The functions, objects and duties of the statutory board are laid out in clause 13.

Clauses 18 to 29 are the financial provisions. The statutory board will be self-funded with its main source of funding being fees for the services it provides.

The transfer of property, liabilities and employees are provided in clauses 30 to 36. All properties, assets and liabilities of the Civil Service College and Personnel Guidance Unit departments will be transferred to the College upon its formation. All the employees of the two departments, apart from the Administrative Officers, will also be transferred to the statutory board at terms that are no less favourable than those enjoyed by the employees before the transfer.

The other provisions in the Bill are standard provisions found in the Acts of other statutory boards.

Sir, the Government has been continually restructuring itself to stay effective and relevant in a changing environment. We have been spinning off statutory boards from the Ministry to give them more autonomy and flexibility in their operations. We have separated the regulatory and operating functions of some statutory boards, hiving off and corporatising their operating functions into independent companies and setting up regulatory agencies to supervise the industries. As new issues and areas emerge which demand focused attention, we are also merging existing statutory boards and setting up new ones. The work of restructuring, however, is never finished. The restructuring of the Civil Service College, as a statutory board, will enable it to better focus on training and organisational development for the public service. This will help us to further upgrade the College and enhance its value to the public service. Ultimately, this should result in better trained public servants who will help to create a first-class public service in Singapore.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Hawazi Daipi: Sir, a lot is expected of the civil service. It has to continue to be efficient, responsive, innovative and service oriented if it were to meet the new demands and needs of the public and to function in the restructuring process of the Government organisations. It is especially true now as our society is undergoing rapid changes, especially in the way people communicate. The Internet has made it possible for people to give feedback more directly. It has also resulted in demand for e-services.

The Civil Service College has a very important role in training civil servants to meet this challenge, especially because the Government aspires for the civil service to be among the best in the world. Indeed, the quality of civil servants determines whether the public service is able to respond to the new challenges and demands. In this context, I would like to ask how would the Civil Service College respond to the challenge of civil service in providing e-services to the public, ie, how the College supports the civil service in this challenge, and how the College itself is responding to the challenge of e-services. Secondly, how would the College assist officers who are moved from one department or Ministry to another so that they can continue to function efficiently?

Sir, I support the plan for the Civil Service College laid out by the Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Loh Meng See (Kampong Glam): Sir, I rise to support the incorporation of the Civil Service College as a separate entity to allow it to be run autonomously, efficiently and effectively. The Civil Service College, if run successfully and getting our civil servants to discharge their duties and responsibilities diligently, will not only benefit the civil servants but also the members of the public whom the civil servants serve. I see a lot of potential for the College to network with the industries and private sector organisations, both in Singapore and overseas. I am sure that the College will be seeking out opportunities to benefit from opening to and participation from the academia, the private sector companies and professional services firms. As some MNCs will become powerful and influential in the globalised world, the public sector officers need to understand how these MNCs work. The civil service should also benchmark itself against the best practices adopted by excellent globalised MNCs.

Sir, we have an excellent public service. We have an established tradition of evolving and strengthening the performance standards of our civil servants. We have sound policies and effective execution by civil servants. Of course, we have the odd occasion of failures, of doing things less well. All these have become the institutional memory and wealth knowledge and information retained in our public service. The world is converging towards requiring high standards of ethics and governance from governments for its citizens. There is a need for civil servants and entrepreneurs, CEOs and professional managers to understand each other. The College can facilitate the exchange and participation in each other's work and programmes.

Singapore has benefitted from the experience of many established public service of developed countries. We have learnt from them and adapted in ways that work best in Singapore. Sir, I think it is now our turn to help the less developed countries to improve the standard of public servants for the benefit of the citizens of the world. And I hope the Civil Service College will provide space and opportunities for the public sector employees of overseas countries. Like the Jamaican MP who is impressed with Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs in how Singapore has succeeded when many others had failed, and we also read from the press report of Chinese bureaucrats who decided that by doing the Master in Public Administration is better than the MBA because it is more appropriate to their work, are examples of the attitudes and actions taken by well-meaning civil servants if opportunities are made available for them to carve a career in the public service.

As learning has become even more important in the globalised and deregulated world and the active participation of citizens on our civil society, I would urge the Government to continue to provide the necessary funds and support in ensuring that adequate resources are provided. In the fast-changing world, civil servants also require to be adequately trained and developed for their jobs. As the iron rice bowl mentality of civil service is a thing of the past, the well-trained civil servants can take comfort that they can make a career switch with ease, making use of their skills, knowledge and experience in their second and subsequent careers.

Finally, Sir, I presume that the Civil Service College will train all levels of public servants from the lowest to the highest grades. This is in line with the learning culture which we wish to inculcate in Singapore. The nature of work requires people working in teams. It requires an integrated and inter-disciplinary approach to problem solving and innovation in the delivering of services to the public.

Sir, with its new character and status, I have no doubt that the College will become a world-class institution of learning for Singapore's civil servants.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I would support the establishment of the Civil Service College as an institution of education to improve the quality of our civil servants. This College, I understand, is not new. It was already in existence on or about the time when the PAP took power in 1959 or thereabouts. But I wonder why after nearly 40 years the Government wants to formalise its establishment.

Sir, I support the formal establishment of such a College, but I have some reservations. A glaring anomaly is that it is supposed to be an institution of education, but turns out to be more a political institution. It is not formed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education but under the charge of the Prime Minister's Office. Politicians are made to be in charge of this College and not professional educators. I think this is significant.

I stand to be corrected, Sir. I believe that it was formed in the early days to educate civil servants on the threat of Communism and dangerous left-wing elements which were present in those early days. But, today, there are hardly such threats any more. Communism in Russia and China has collapsed for good. Both these countries have abandoned Communism as a doctrine and there is no fear of spread of Communism to other countries, including Singapore, anymore. If such is the case, then what is the thrust of the teachings of the College these days?

Singapore is well known for its efficiency. I certainly have no objections to the training of our civil servants to be efficient, but I hope that the efficiency of our civil servants is neutral to all parties. The civil servants must serve the whole population without any fear or favour, and not to favour any political parties. Sir, I would take this opportunity to tell the civil servants in Singapore that the Opposition in Singapore is a loyal opposition. We are loyal to the Constitution and loyal to Singapore. We are just as responsible as the ruling party or any other Singaporean in regard to nation building, and keeping Singapore a peaceful and prosperous place.

I am saying this because in my early days of participating in politics, my experience was that when the Opposition made an application to the HDB or to the Police for a public entertainment licence, we were treated with suspicion by civil servants. Those applications were in relation to a simple thing like holding a public dinner, and yet there was always a long delay. There was always complete silence to our application. And what we had to do was to send constant reminders and make telephone calls to the authorities, but we got no answers. Those applications, mind you, were not earth shattering applications. They were just simple procedural applications to hold a public dinner.

My experience was that when I telephoned an officer, he would say, "Oh, your application has gone all the way up." My goodness, can you believe that? It was a simple application, and the application went all the way up, and no answer had come down yet. That was why there was a delay. Sir, I am not exaggerating. A simple application of the Opposition to hold a public dinner, and yet our application had to go all the way up to the top. Any application from the Opposition appeared to be like a hot potato to the civil servants, and no one wanted to make a decision on it. With the formal establishment of the Civil Service College, I hope that the right things can be taught in this College, to defuse the fear and suspicion of the Opposition, and not treat us as if we are like animals with horns and sharp teeth. I would like to remind the civil servants that we are also Singaporeans who treat Singapore as our home. Our true intention is also to make Singapore a better place to live in. I hope this message somehow can get into the teachings of the Civil Service College.

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, perhaps I will take Mr Chiam's points first since they are fresh and vivid in our minds.

Mr Chiam is mistaken. The Civil Service College has nothing to do with the Political Study Centre. The Political Study Centre is what the PAP Government set up in 1959 when it first came into power in order to educate the civil servants in the realities of Singapore's politics and what the communist threat was and what the nation-building priorities were. That was in 1959. The Civil Service College is the successor of what used to be called CSSDI (Civil Service Staff and Development Institute) which was at Heng Mui Keng Terrace at Pasir Panjang. It runs staff courses, courses for middle management, courses for senior management, courses on governance, courses on good English writing, courses on how to be a good civil servant, including how to deal expeditiously with difficult hot potatoes!

CSSDI had been there for many years. It was converted into a Civil Service College about a decade ago and now we are going to convert this into a statutory board, so that it can operate more flexibly and have more leeway in hiring people and taking people on contract, in doing activities beyond the strict traditional mandate. Because, as Mr Loh Meng See says, the Civil Service College also has to have links with what is happening in the outside world, to be benchmarked against best practices amongst the MNCs.

So the two are totally separate, and politics is not in charge, neither are politicians in charge. These are professional educational courses which need to be run for civil servants at all levels, from the top Permanent Secretary potential, all the way down to the clerical officer or to the EO. So it is a completely neutral outfit. It has nothing to do with the travails or the vicissitudes which the Opposition gets into from time to time. I have no doubt that we will inform all civil servants that the Opposition does not consist of animals with horns and sharp teeth, and that they should defuse their fear and suspicion of the Opposition. I will make a point of informing them this.

Mr Hawazi asked about e-services. E-services are indeed an important public sector initiative because it is a way for us to improve our service, a way for us to get across to the public to provide our services, to get responses to service them better. Therefore, the College provides a comprehensive range of IT programmes to help the officers to become comfortable and adept at IT in order to support electronic delivery of services. In the management programmes, there are also modules to prompt participants to consider how e-government could be adopted to help respective organisations improve their internal processes and service delivery. The College itself is also adopting infocomm technologies to better service its customers and has started offering e-learning services through its open academy. So this is one significant area for the College to focus on.

The College also does assist officers who are moved from one department or Ministry to another, as Mr Hawazi has asked. It offers skills programmes to help officers to be trained for new work requirements if this is necessary. Apart from the skills specific programmes, it also has developed mental programmes to help officers prepare for and cope with different transitions in life, including changes in the work environment.

Mr Loh Meng See asked about benchmarking against MNCs and the private sector. Most of our programmes are focused on the needs of the public service. That is the main mission of the Civil Service College. But we do recognise that some of these programmes offer a platform for interaction among participants from the public and private sectors which enriches the learning environment and exposes participants to more valid initiatives and perspectives. So although the College's courses are geared towards the public sector, some of these courses are open to private sector participants, except for a few in-house courses which are especially sensitive.

Training for foreign civil services - indeed we do provide training as well as consultancy. In fact, the College frequently serves as a one-stop contact point for foreign civil services on matters relating to public service reforms and initiatives because many foreign civil services are interested in finding out more about Singapore's corporate governance. These interactions are valued by the College. They provide opportunities for the learning and sharing of best practices in public administration and they strengthen the understanding between Singapore and the foreign civil services. We have had amongst other civil services, civil servants from Bhutan, Botswana, China, Macau, Thailand and Vietnam, to come to the College, and they use the services which are often specially tailored to the needs of the respective civil services. I think with the increased operational flexibility of a statutory board, the College will be better placed to assemble teams of trainers and consultants quickly in response to these requests.

Finally, Mr Loh Meng See asked whether the courses cover all levels of the civil service. The answer is yes. Because training is relevant and important to all levels and so the programmes cater to all levels according to their learning needs, ranging from management development programmes for senior civil servants to office skills programmes for support level civil servants. It does not mean the College does every single course. For example, it does not offer unique vocational training like nursing or civil defence which the professional organisations will provide. But the College provides the broad training programmes for the whole range of the civil service, from the bottom to the top.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [BG Lee Hsien Loong].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed. 4.38 pm