Gaps In Public Service

Quoting a report by consulting, technology- services and outsourcing company Accenture ("Delivering Public Service For The Future: Navigating The Shifts") the mainstream media said the Singapore Government may have to spend an additional $13 billion to fund public services by 2025. The puzzle here is where the billions have been spent, if they were actually expended for public services at all. The mind boggling amount is supposed to be required due to costs associated with the country's ageing population. Ask Ah Pek when was the last time he received any handout without strings attached - as in the nefarious one-time GST voucher for a life-time hike in good and services tax.

Note the tiny gap attributed to Singapore's public service

Reading the report proper, Accenture's focus was actually about the gap between what the citizens want, and what the Government is delivering. They have identified four clear structural shifts that are needed to push public services toward becoming more outcome focused:
1. Shift from standardised services to personal services;
2. Shift from reactive to insight driven;
3. Shift from public management to public entrepreneurship;
4. Shift from piecemeal efficiency to mission productivity.

To emphasize the message, they quote the CEO of CONSIP, a public company owned by Italy's Ministry of the Economy and Finance, "The world is moving forward very rapidly, and just as production processes change and public sentiment changes, likewise the service processes of the public administration must also change." In short, it is an indictment of a failed public service that has not kept up with the pace of change.

Accenture reports that 63 percent of those surveyed agreed with this statement: "I often find it difficult to find my way through the system to access the services I need." That must be the bureaucratic red tape so familiar to all of us. If the Government is sincere about helping our senior citizens in their evening years they need to provide a clearer roadmap that is personalised, insight driven, entrepreneur and productive.