2012 PSC Scholarships Award Ceremony: Keynote Address

Mr Eddie Teo, Chairman, Public Service Commission 

Members of the PSC

Distinguished guests, principals, parents, teachers, scholarship recipients

Ladies and gentlemen

1.       I am very happy to join you here this afternoon for this year’s Public Service Commission Scholarships Award Ceremony.

2.       Let me first congratulate the 61 scholarship recipients. You are being recognized not just for your academic performance, but also your leadership potential and, most of all, your desire to make our country a better home for all of us.

3.       To the parents, principals and teachers, I share your joy on this special occasion. I am sure you are very proud that you have nurtured an outstanding son, daughter, or student, who now stands ready to answer the call of duty to our nation. Let me invite the scholarship recipients to join me in a warm round of applause for all of you.

4.       For the scholarship recipients, I am heartened to know you still come from diverse educational backgrounds, and will pursue your studies in different universities and disciplines. Issues in Singapore are becoming more complex. The Public Service and Public Service officers would deal with these complexities. Therefore, officers with different backgrounds and training – from science and engineering to the arts and humanities – and experiences in different countries would be very useful to us.

5.       To the scholarship recipients, today marks the start of your exciting journey to serve the country. I am glad that you have made a career choice to join the Singapore Public Service by accepting this scholarship.

6.       Bright young students today have many choices in terms of their careers. Many more can afford to fund their own studies, and scholarships, including bond-free ones, are available.

7.       The PSC will continue to ensure that its scholarship terms remain attractive, so that we continue to have a strong pipe-line of officers each year to ensure that our public service remains excellent in the future. But it is not just about providing attractive scholarship terms. What is more important is to attract the right kind of people, who are motivated to take up the PSC scholarships by the exciting and meaningful career propositions that the Public Service offers.

8.       Public service offers you a chance to make a positive difference to the lives of Singaporeans. And indeed our public officers do, everyday – some behind the scenes, others in frontline services. Essentially, to be a good public officer, you must derive satisfaction and happiness from other people’s happiness and satisfaction. And that is what makes you, ultimately, a good public officer who is happy to serve.

Public Service in a Changing Landscape

9.       When I was a student around your age and thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, I decided that I would join the public sector. The bottom line that I worked for, would not be a company’s profits, but the greater good of Singapore and Singaporeans. So with that in mind, I took up the Singapore Armed Forces Scholarship in 1973, and served in the Navy upon my graduation. 40 years later now, I have no regrets. It has been a good experience, with many wonderful opportunities to work in diverse areas to serve Singapore and Singaporeans.

10.       Today, the landscape in which our public officers operate in is very different. With globalization and easy access to information, Singaporeans are more informed and participative. This is a good thing. Many have good ideas to contribute and want to do something positive. The Public Service should work more closely with those who are prepared to devote time and energy to help make a difference for the good of Singapore and Singaporeans.

11.       So what can you expect when you start your own Public Service career some four to six years from now? The world may again have changed quite dramatically in the ensuing years while you are studying, but I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight two key trends that will shape the Public Service, and which will be important to you in your work in the coming years. They are Collaboration and Engagement. These are no different from what you will be required to do in any sector, whether in the public or private sectors, or even in the people sector.

Opportunities for Cross-Agency Collaboration

12.       First, collaboration. Today, many issues and challenges are increasingly multi-disciplinary and inter-connected. Often times, one ministry or agency may not be able to solve such cross-cutting issues on its own, and needs to work with others in partnership or collaboration to develop holistic solutions that work well.

13.       Take for instance the demographic challenges confronting Singapore – ageing population, low birth rates, and hence a shrinking workforce. How do we encourage Singaporeans to marry younger and have more children? It is not a simple policy prescription which says do this, and out comes that. It doesn’t work that way. How do we raise productivity of our workforce so that we can overcome problems of a declining workforce? Or how do we better cater to the needs of an elderly population? You can’t do that just by starting a new agency in the government. These are all complex and intertwined challenges, and officers from various ministries, departments and Statutory Boards need to come together to think through the issues thoroughly, deeply, holistically, and recommend the best ways to take us forward. It is not just about thinking about them, but making them work.

14.       In the case of population issues, the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) from the Prime Minister’s Office works with several agencies, including the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports on marriage and parenthood, the Ministry of Health on healthcare needs for the elderly, the Ministry of Trade and Industry to raise productivity, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority on immigration matters, the Housing and Development Board for public housing, the Urban Redevelopment Authority on land use. To come up with good policies, NPTD needs to work with stakeholders and the public to understand and review Singapore’s population goals and policies.

15.       In the future, we will increasingly have to make difficult trade-offs when making and implementing policies. Do we want to build an eldercare centre, or a basketball court in a particular precinct? Do we stop more foreign manpower from coming in, or take in more in certain industries, like healthcare, to take care of our elderly? Which are the new economic sectors that we should be encouraging and favouring to give us a better future? All of these involve trade-offs of one kind or another. What makes Singapore unique is that we have not chosen one particular solution over another, but that in our little island, we have been able to strike the right balance between all of them to allow our population to grow, and our people to be better off year after year, decade after decade. I’m confident that with a good public service serving Singaporeans, we will have the ability to continue to do so in the future.

16.       Public agencies will need to examine the policy options and trade-offs across agencies and domains. We hope that these collaborative efforts will enable the Singapore Government as a whole to develop better government policies to tackle the complex challenges we face.

Opportunities for Public Engagement

17.       The second is Engagement. Beyond working with other public officers, the work that we do as public officers also involves many external partnerships and engagements. Increasingly, we need to also see engagement as co-creation, and not just a communication of information, but as co-creation through the joint efforts of the Public Service, and the people we are here to serve.

18.       Through public engagement and co-creation, we can develop sound policies to make Singapore a better place for. In addition, individuals and groups who played a part in co-creating a solution would have a greater sense of ownership, and can even help to champion the solution with the larger community.

19.       For example, at the new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, patients and family members got involved in suggesting facility improvements including little things like location of lights, the tilt of TV monitors, and the temperature of the air conditioning. These are small things, but they make a big difference in the patients’ experience and their families’ experience. Patients and families also gave feedback on caregiver needs, for example, the difficulties they face when bringing their elderly parents for appointments and reviews with doctors. By acting on such feedback, the hospital improved its facilities and services. The hospital also co-creates with partners such as the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped, the Singapore Institute of Architects, and various government agencies. Some of the co-created ideas include easy access for the handicapped, rooftop gardens to lower building temperature, and cluster service facilities for patients’ convenience.

20.       Let me share another example. Under the private, people, public partnership, Voluntary Welfare Organisations play a useful role by complementing the services provided by the Government. This is particularly useful, when VWOs venture into new areas that are un-served or under-served, and where commitment and personal touch really makes a difference. For example, the Singapore Anglican Community Services provides support to the psychiatrically ill and emotionally disturbed, in a community setting. They have four mental health centres which help clients to regain their confidence through the provision of counseling, work therapy, vocational training and job placement. One of these centres is actually in my constituency, and I have seen how some of the residents have benefitted from the good work done by these mental health centres in a community setting.

21.       To harness the community’s energy and enthusiasm, we need to reach out to the public more effectively. There is room for the Public Service to leverage more on new tools such as social media platforms to engage and connect with the public. I hope that young people like you can take the lead in bringing the Public Service forward in this aspect, having grown up in the age of the internet, computers and digital devices where people are connected with each other all the time.

22.       I look forward to the Public Service building a stronger, win-win partnership with the public that we serve. Through greater engagement and more co-creation, I am confident that we will not only develop solutions that better meet the needs of Singaporeans, but also, at the same time, strengthen the community spirit and sense of ownership for this project of ours which is Singapore.

Staying True to Our Public Service Values

23.       Before I end, I would like to reiterate that even while the Public Service is transforming itself to better serve the public, our core values remain unchanged. The values of integrity, service and excellence must underpin everything we do.

24.       Our officers know that as stewards of public resources, they are expected to perform their duties with the highest standards of integrity. They must guard against behaving in any way that can erode the trust that Singaporeans have in the Public Service. We will strictly maintain that in the public service and we must remember this, always.

Conclusion

25.       The excellent Public Service that we have today has taken more than 50 years to build. The 2011/2012 Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum assessed Singapore’s institutions to be the best in the world, for good government, good government efficiency and lack of corruption. As PSC scholarship recipients, you will have an active part to play in shaping the public service’s future direction and reputation. You have the responsibility to keep it a strong and enduring institution, to help Singapore remain exceptional even as the world around us goes through tremendous change.

26.       I am glad that you have chosen this challenging and meaningful career. The Public Service exists to serve the public, and to serve Singaporeans. This is why I joined the public service, and why you have joined the public service. Let us all, in our own ways, do our best for Singapore and Singaporeans.

27.       I wish you all the best as you embark on your studies, and success as you begin your journey in the Public Service and in serving Singapore and Singaporeans.

28.       Thank you.