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Serving Singaporeans as an effective Government

Last updated 20 November 2024

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Effective and trusted Public Service

We are committed to serving Singapore and Singaporeans as an effective Government, based on our core values of Integrity, Service, and Excellence. Building trust with our people is important as it enables effective planning and implementation of policies and services for the present, as well as the future of Singapore.

Internationally, Singapore continued to rank within the top five in terms of government effectiveness by the World Bank in 2023, and public confidence in the Government by the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer – an annual global survey on trust and credibility.

Trust in the Public Service is built on the foundations of integrity. Singapore has a well-earned reputation for a high level of incorruptibility and continued to achieve good international rankings in anti-corruption.

Corruption in Singapore remained firmly under control. This is a result of strong political will, robust anti-corruption laws, effective enforcement, and an efficient Public Service with a strong ethos of serving our people.
The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2023 ranked Singapore the fifth least corrupt country in the world out of 180 countries, and the only Asian country to be ranked in the top 10.
Locally, public confidence in our fight against corruption has improved over the years. In the 2022 Public Perception Survey, 96% of respondents rated corruption control efforts in Singapore as Good, Very Good or Excellent, up from 94% in 2020 and 92% in 2018.

We remain committed to building a sound Public Service with the means and ability to deliver on commitments, and meet the needs of citizens and businesses. Singapore’s fiscal system has been well regarded to be financially sound and sustainable. With a strong long-term orientation, we have planned in advance to cater for new spending priorities and needs, including raising the Goods and Services Tax rate to 9% from January 2024.

Singapore remained among a select group of economies with a triple-A sovereign credit rating.
During the peak of global inflation in 2021 and 2022, the Government was able to provide support packages to citizens, particularly for lower-and middle-income Singaporeans, due to our sound fiscal base. While inflation has moderated, we stand ready to help citizens with the cost-of-living, where necessary.

Feature Story: Commitment to serve citizens and alleviate cost-of-living concerns with support measures

To provide our citizens with support for their living expenses:

The Government addressed cost-of-living concerns through several enhancements to the Assurance Package (AP) since it was first announced in 2022. The $1.9 billion enhancement to the AP announced at Budget 2024 included additional Community Development Council (CDC) Vouchers for all Singaporean households, cash payments for eligible adult Singaporeans, and additional Utilities-Save (U-Save) and Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rebates for eligible HDB households.

The CDC Vouchers Scheme is part of the AP and provides support for Singaporean households with their daily expenses.

On average, the enhancements to the AP at Budget 2024 would fully cover the increase in spending due to inflation for lower-income households, and substantially cover the increase in spending due to inflation for middle-income households, in 2024.
In May 2023, the BudgetMealGoWhere portal was launched to help residents locate coffee shops offering budget meals easily and conveniently, with the information crowdsourced from members of the public through CrowdTaskSG. Over 2,300 budget meal recommendations were submitted, and more than 3,200 budget meals were verified across 435 coffee shops islandwide. As at September 2024, more than 620,000 visits have been made to the portal.

Accessible and citizen-centric services

We strive to deliver better public services to our citizens by increasing their accessibility and integrating services across agency lines.

To increase the accessibility of services, we enhanced digital public services to meet citizens’ day-to-day needs.

Since 2022, about 99% of government service transactions were completed digitally end-to-end.
Citizen satisfaction with government e-services remained high at 83% in 2023.

Feature Story: Roll-out of digital birth and death registration process

In May 2022, birth and death registrations in Singapore were fully digitalised, reducing time spent by Singaporeans on government administration matters.

Time spent on birth registration was reduced by 75% (from 60 to 15 minutes). Digital birth certificate application has been automatically linked with the application of a Child Development Account, Baby Bonus Scheme and National Library membership, providing a one-stop service.
With digital death certificate issuance, Singaporeans no longer need to perform an additional step of registering a death at a police post or hospital registration counter.
The digital birth and death certificate download service has had high average customer satisfaction ratings of 4.6 and 4.8 out of five respectively.

Even as we expand digital services, we continued to ensure that public services remain inclusive and accessible to all, especially to those who are less digitally-savvy. To make services more citizen-centric, the Government has been delivering integrated services to citizens.

In October 2021, ServiceSG was formed to bring together services across public agencies. Since January 2024, all seven ServiceSG centres are able to serve citizens with close to 600 government services from over 25 agencies. The integration of multiple services at ServiceSG centres has enhanced citizens' experience and convenience.
ServiceSG has provided convenience for those facing difficulty in accessing digital services, with close to 70% of citizens served at ServiceSG centres above the age of 55 as at August 2024. In addition to addressing citizens’ primary queries, ServiceSG officers assess citizens’ needs comprehensively and recommend other services that they may need.
Citizen satisfaction across all ServiceSG Centres were consistently above 90% for the last three years, since the centres’ expansion in 2022. As at August 2024, there were seven ServiceSG Centres, with two new centres at Bukit Merah Central and Woodlands Civic Centre opening by December 2024.

ServiceSG Centres: A Digital Safety Net for Citizens

A ServiceSG Officer assisting a citizen with the HDB Cash Payment Kiosk located on-site at the ServiceSG centre

We recognise that there can be risks when personal data is collected through our touchpoints. As more government services are digitalised to provide convenience to citizens and businesses, government data incidents had increased from 182 in Financial Year (FY) 2022 to 201 in FY2023 due to the higher volume of data usage.

We are committed to ensuring the security of personal data and will continue to enhance our security measures to mitigate the risk of data compromises.

For example, we mitigated data leaks by anonymising personal data. In March 2023, Cloak (formerly Central Privacy Toolkit) was launched to allow public officers to anonymise datasets in a standardised and secure manner. The toolkit mitigated the risk of data leaks stemming from data sharing, allowing public officers to securely share data within and outside the public sector. As at August 2024, officers from 99 public sector agencies and six Ministry of Health Holdings entities have used Cloak to anonymise over 28 million datasets, enabling the secure sharing of data.

A forward-looking Public Service

The Public Service continued to transform to stay ahead of our challenges, partner Singaporeans to co-create a shared future for Singapore, and build a Public Service that all Singaporeans can be proud of.

First, we review how we organise ourselves to meet future challenges. In July 2024, the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) was renamed the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI), to reflect the ministry’s role in driving our national digital agenda and the bringing together of Whole-of-Government digital development efforts as part of a coherent national digital strategy.
Second, we invest in our officers. The rate of skills obsolescence is expected to accelerate as we embrace new technologies and as individuals stay longer in the workforce. To ensure career longevity and resilience, we must continue equipping public officers with the skills necessary for the future. We continued to invest in the growth and development opportunities for all public officers, from structured classroom learning to experiential and peer learning initiatives. These included Short-Term Immersion Programmes and Gig projects in other agencies, Structured Job Rotations, and Talent Attachment Programmes outside the Public Service. We also launched two additional initiatives:
- From 2022, all public officers are provided with 40 hours of unrecorded leave (approximately five working days), for them to participate in self-initiated growth and developmental activities outside of the Public Service.
- In 2023, the Public Service for Good movement was launched to help our officers build their capabilities in citizen engagement and reinforce their sense of purpose by enabling them to contribute to doing good beyond their job scope.
- As at May 2024, more than 7,000 officers have benefitted from these opportunities. We will continue to strengthen our upskilling ecosystem to support our officer’s learning and development.
Third, the public sector remains committed to leading and pursuing environmental sustainability through the GreenGov.SG initiative. The first GreenGov.SG report was published in 2023, detailing the public sector’s progress and plans in environmental sustainability, including the appointment of a Government Chief Sustainability Officer and the adoption of Green Procurement requirements.

As we head into a new decade of Singapore’s independence, we will face new challenges and opportunities. The Public Service will continue to grow its capabilities, partner and build trust with citizens and businesses, and build a Singapore that we can all be proud of together.

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