Productivity and Innovation in the Social Service Sector

Sir, I admit that, unless the many helping hands in our social service sector are untangled and co-ordinated, we will not be able to maximise the impact on the communities we are trying to help.  As Bill Gates said of his work to solve the mega social problems in the world, "The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to cut through the complexity to find the solution."

Many Members of Parliament have asked for holistic solutions to help the poor and vulnerable.  We work with so many compassionate and willing helping hands such as the Community Development Councils (CDC), Family Services Centres, National Council of Social Service (NCSS), voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs), grassroots leaders, religious help groups, and so forth.  Even Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong shared, in February, that his courts had been providing help for dysfunctional families with food vouchers, rice, cooking oil and sugar. 

Sir, in the current state of the Many Helping Hands model, we see overlapped services; over-served and under-served residents and repeat "customers" coming back to us for help that is unlikely to get them out of their poverty spirals.

I find this perplexing, unproductive and not strategic.

I urge the Ministry to take the lead with its key partners and the Many Helping Hands and seriously put in place at different levels, the "System Integrator" role in our social services sector. In the world of IT and defence, a system integrator is a person or company that specialises in rigorously assessing the needs of clients, bringing together, building overall solutions, integrating products and services from different vendors, different helping hands to deliver results for the clients – each hand knowing the role of the other hand with the system integrator tracking overall results. This tight total solution is what the Many Helping Hands need in the social service sector.

There are holes in our social safety net that we need to repair. I seek the Minister’s attention in several areas:

(i) for the chronic poor. Sir, I seek a modified form of public assistance for some in this group who are denied public assistance as they happen to be receiving ongoing CPF payouts from their own CPF account. The quantums are usually about over $200 and are way below that of the PA recipients. Some of them were former low-wage earners who could not deposit enough into their CPF and some are medically boarded out and are withdrawing their CPF balances prematurely. Because the CPF payout rate is low for these people, many of them return to their MPs or the Family Service Centres for replenishments. These people are now referred to as our "permanent ComCare" cases. These permanent ComCare cases need help; and

(ii) for the Disabled. I seek an update from the Minister of the five-year Enabling Masterplan that the Minister should be credited for initiating. I know that NCSS and MCYS have been working very hard over these years and I seek an update. As the plan will be expiring in 2011, when will the next review be? What are the outcomes especially for the early intervention and adulthood services that MCYS is directly overseeing?

There are a couple of gaps that I seek the Minister’s help in plugging:

(i) in early intervention for which means-testing for this fairly costly service was planned to be fully effective this financial year;

(ii) to support adult disability day care centres and homes run by VWOs, especially those handling more severe and at times physically challenging clients. I call for a review of the norm costs and foreign staff ratio there; and

(iii) I urge the Minister to look into the lower-income families with adult-disabled children who cannot afford the entry and recurring fees for the services provided by the Special Needs Trust Company that MCYS has helped set up.

Finally, Sir, I would urge Government not to leave behind the non-profit social service sector in its efforts to boost productivity and innovation. Please increase MCYS' budget and give a generous productivity and innovation fund, so that they can hone the sector with skills, such as for productivity enhancement and innovation skills.If we exclude the sector out of this national movement, we might increase Singapore’s GDP and create a prosperous country, but we will not create a great country.