MCYS SPEECH NO: 13/2009

DATE OF ISSUE: 11/02/2009

Speech by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister, Ministry of

Community Development, Youth and Sports at the FY 2009
Committee for Supply Debate, 11 February 2009

Resources for the Social Service Sector

1. Sir, the social service sector and the Voluntary Welfare

Organisations, or VWOs, are critical for our system to work. So I
share the concerns of members that this is a sector we need to
pay more attention to, and I take your point that perhaps we have
not reached the tipping point yet. I am also acutely aware that this
is a counter-cyclical business. And at a time of severe downturn,
their workload will increase. This is also the time when there will
inevitably be strains on the financing side because of worries
about donations from the public.

2. Nevertheless, we still do need to press on. We still need

to continue to raise funds. In my earlier speech, we estimated
that, this year, there will be about $460m flowing into the sector.
More than half of that will come from the government. The other
$220 million are donations, of which, as I also alluded to,
represents a significant portion of tax foregone by the Ministry of
Finance. So let’s see how this pans out. Yes, there will have to
be some element of belt-tightening. It is not possible for me to
stand here and say that there will be no impact on your bottom

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line, and there is no need to be careful with your expenditure. We
will all need to do our bit.

3. The social safety net is really held up by a tripod; on the

government side, there is MCYS, and the Community
Development Councils (CDCs), which represent our
decentralised arm in the community. Second, the Family Service
Centres (FSCs) and the VWOs that stand behind them, as well as
the VWOs which provide specialised services. And the third is the
grassroots network.

4. We need all these three to function. I take Denise Phua’s

point. I wish it was as easy as promising you another Masterplan,
another Master Committee, and then everything would fall into
place. I have been in this game long enough to know that there
are no quick and easy solutions. I will not stand here and make
promises that I cannot fulfil. But having said that, let’s take a
clinical look at what has happened so far.

Recommendations from the Review of Family Service

Centres (FSCs)
5. We reviewed the role of the FSCs. There are 36 FSCs
scattered across the island. We have decided that we need to get
back to basics, and reaffirm the role of FSCs, to focus on the
social well-being of vulnerable families. There is a lot of
upstream and downstream work that they can do, but these are
additional options. Every FSC must be like a polyclinic out there
in the community, and be the general practitioner of social work.

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Families who go there must be assured that there’s a minimum
level of service which is available. From the ministry’s
perspective, that also means that we must provide enough
resources so that they can have this suite of services.

6. My ministry will raise the funding for FSCs by $3m in this

year, to reach $16m. Frankly, this is not a large sum of money.
Instead, it shows you how efficient and how much work they have
been doing, despite such a relatively small sum of money from
my ministry. But as the workloads go up, I must be willing to
allocate more resources to enable them to provide these
programs, particularly programs which the government expects.

7. The next issue, of course, and as you have alluded to, is

the quantity and quality of manpower. Social work is very labour
intensive. It is very hands and hearts and minds intensive, and
you can’t automate or outsource this. So, even as we talk about
increasing the number of FSCs, we do need to increase the
number of social workers.

8. We intend to do this through a combination of providing

additional training avenues, accelerated courses, conversion
courses, as well as providing more scholarships and bursaries.
And as you have said, we also need to recognise the
professionalism of our social workers and I will say more about
that later on.

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9. The other key thing which our FSCs need to focus on is the
establishment of working relationships with key community
partners. Ms Denise Phua always talks about having an
integrated, comprehensive, functioning network. But I ask all our
84 MPs here, opposition and PAP alike, how many of you have
the working relationship with the FSC that services your residents?
I am glad that one of you has raised your hand. But can we say
the same universally, across the board? The same need applies
to the CDCs and their relationships with the VWOs and the FSCs.

10. We have made much progress in the last few years but we
haven’t yet reached that happy state that I think Ms Denise Phua
anticipates. But we need to start working on these relationships,
and it starts at the human level. Do you have each other’s phone
numbers to consult, to call urgently? Do you share information?
Yes we do have a ComCare database. But this database is only
as good as the data that is put in. If everyone who is helping
another doesn’t put in the data to begin with, then the database is
not very useful. But you know, today, every Advisor here has
access to that database. I will tell you honestly, not everyone has
accessed the database. Now we don’t have to get defensive
about why we do or why we don’t access the database. The point
is - the system is there.

Increased Funding Resources for VWOs

11. For the VWOs who are serving in our sector – it’s more than
just FSCs – we will be increasing our overall funding. And the fact
is that this year, we will be increasing our overall funding to $131-

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140 million a year. That means, apart from the $100m which we
deliver directly to needy families, MCYS funnels another $140m
through VWOs, in order to serve people in need.

12. Another question which has been raised in the past is the
issue of GST. The VWOs providing these social services are also
liable to GST. What I will do is to help them offset this GST by
providing additional funds to the VWOs. If they are providing
government sponsored or government backed programmes, they
will not have to worry about the additional GST. We will provide
that additional assistance.

Professionalisation of Social Service Sector

13. Now let me turn to professionalising the sector. I totally
agree with you that we need to give due recognition to social
workers. For a long time, as you said, they were not even given
the recognition due to professionals. I always felt that this is
wrong and I am glad that we have taken some steps. Maybe not
as fast as you would like, but you will agree that we have taken
some steps in the right direction.

14. We revised the salary guidelines in 2007. Having said that,

the bulk of employers of social workers is not from the
government, but from the VWOs. And it takes time for them to
translate our norm costs, our salary guidelines, into their own
payments to the staff. But nevertheless, I think the fact that we
have revised the guidelines and that we have also said that we
will be looking into further revisions of the guidelines, will make a
difference. Now of course in this year, in 2009, to stand here and

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say I am trying to raise the salary of any class of workers, would
be, I think, dissonant. So I am not going to say that social worker
salaries are going to go up this year. I can’t say that. But I can
say that we intend for social worker salaries to go up in the
medium to long term. We will work on that together, and
collectively.

15. We also have other schemes which you referred to, the
Sabbatical Leave Scheme, and the Professional and
Leadership Development Scheme (PLDS). Several social
workers have already taken advantage of these schemes.

16. I have already asked the Director of Social Welfare, Mrs

Corinne Koh, to oversee the accreditation process. I think we
have waited long enough for this. I hope that in the course of this
year, she and the other leaders of the social work scene in
Singapore can get together and get accreditation off the ground.
Then we will have no doubt that a social worker is a professional,
with a proper set of accredited qualifications, and not everyone
can claim to be a social worker.

17. But even as we do that, I would advise social workers to

avoid the temptations of many other professionals to engage in
protectionism – to say that there is a small elite group who is
qualified, and everybody else is not and therefore not allowed to
practise. l think this would be wrong. We are hence working with
a polytechnic to run courses at the diploma level, so that there will
be associate social workers. There is some quibble over whether
we should call them associate social workers or social work

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associates. Some of this debate reflects protectionism. But the
point is I need to get more manpower into the sector. And I think
you all agree that the more hands on board, the better.

Improved volunteer management through Singapore Cares

18. I am glad that Jessie Phua brought up the point that as
retrenchments go up, overtime is cut, and people work shorter
hours, some of us may end up with more time on our hands. This
is perhaps an opportunity to consider increasing our
commitments to volunteerism. I am glad to announce that the
National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) are working
on the same idea. I guess great minds think alike. We will be
launching a new program called Singapore Cares.

19. This is a scheme that, as you have suggested, will play

matchmaker for people who are willing to volunteer, but cannot
volunteer on a long-term, permanent contractual basis – perhaps
only a few hours a week on a specific area of interest. NVPC
through Singapore Cares will play matchmaker between VWOs
on one hand, and this pool of manpower on the other hand.

20. NVPC will launch an online real-time system. You know that
in Singapore, everybody wants to go online and in real-time. They
may do all that. But let’s not get distracted by the technology. In
the end, it’s the willingness of people to share their time and
expertise.

21. I totally agree with you that one of the most corrosive and
scary thing about retrenchment is the fact that one suddenly has

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nothing to do. That is sometimes more scary than the loss of
income. And whilst we do our best to get the economy off the
ground, and get jobs going again, I think we should really
encourage people, to find productive and fulfilling uses of their
time. I do not present this as an alternative to paid work. I am
saying that volunteering is a fulfilling, viable and good thing to do,
especially at a time like this, when there are so many needs.

22. So I hope that members will continue to support our Many

Helping Hands model, to continue to encourage donations both in
terms of time and money to VWOs. And we will continue to try
and improve the system. It is not perfect, not by a long way, but
we will continue to make improvements.

23. Thank you.

*****

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