Mr Speaker, members of the House, last year has been eventful for MCYS. On the legislative front, we enacted the International Child Abduction Bill. We also made amendments to the
Women’s Charter and
Charities Act, the
Children and Young Persons Act, the Hindu Endowments Act. And Mr Seah Kian Peng amended the
Maintenance of Parents Act.
Beyond legislative work, we have also pushed ahead in enhancing our programmes for all Singaporeans. For the needy, we refined the Public Assistance criteria as well as the means-testing framework to provide more subsidies for social services. We improved the accessibility and the quality of childcare by adding 107 new childcare centres in 2010. We also launched the
Child Development Network and upgraded the quality of our childcare teachers. We made the
Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC) which both
Ms Denise Phua and
Mr Laurence Wee spoke about, more affordable. We also opened up more employment pathways for the disabled for them to integrate into the mainstream. We raised the funding norms for social workers, and we also launched the first of five new Family Service Centres. The
Office of the Public Guardian began its operations last year to bring the
Mental Capacity Act into effect. We also continued to foster integration through the work of the
National Integration Council, which I chair. And Singaporeans will remember the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in August, which is now part of our national legacy.
My Ministry will continue to do more to strengthen social cohesion and support. I will classify our key beneficiaries into the following clusters: first, families in need; second, young children; third, youth, especially those at risk; and the other vulnerable groups which include those with disabilities and also groups who may be susceptible to problem gambling; in addition to that, we have also been looking at the social service sector as a key infrastructure for our social services, in order to upgrade and to uplift that sector.
Families in Need
On families in need.
Mr Seah Kian Peng asked about our efforts to help the most needy amongst us. I will have to reiterate our key principles. Finding work and staying in work is the key to self-reliance. And that is why the Government invests so heavily to help Singaporeans upgrade their skills and to get higher-paying jobs. For those in lower-paying jobs, we have Workfare to boost their income and to make work worthwhile. As low-income families upgrade themselves or look for jobs, there is a need as members have alluded to, to make sure that
ComCare complements Workfare. Here I reiterate that our priorities in ComCare are: first, to help people with urgent and immediate needs; second, to overcome social barriers to work because we want them to get into jobs and it may be to take advantage of Workfare; and third, we must facilitate child care arrangements, because there has been much concern in this House about social mobility, and social mobility, the key focus has to be on children.
For those who are unable to work, with no means of income and either no or very limited family support, we take care of them through the
Public Assistance scheme. We monitor the cost of living very closely, and we pay particular attention to the price of basic food items. I would like to remind Members that in this term of Parliament – and all members in this House came in 2006 - the Public Assistance rate for a single person was $260 in 2007. Since then, I have raised it four times and from 1 April, it will become $400; $260 to $400 in one term of Parliament.
In fact, for a household with two adults and two children, they would receive a total of $1,350, which would more than cover the cost of food that
Mr Seah Kian Peng tried to calculate for us yesterday. My Ministry tracks monthly a basket of low-cost food – uncooked food. And we regularly shop at FairPrice. We do track this very closely, because we must ensure that nobody goes hungry in Singapore. But it is also important to understand that we must not be overly focused on the cash component. It is only one component of the total public assistance package. We should remind ourselves that PA recipients receive totally free medical care, free education for their children, subsidies, U-SAVE subsidies as well as considerable additional support from the community.
But even as we acknowledge that, I will continue to give the assurance that we will make sure that no one will be left behind. No one will go hungry, no one will go without food on the table, or without a roof on their heads, or healthcare, or education, regardless of how the cost of living increases. We have the wherewithal to ensure that for this most vulnerable group in our society.
It is also noteworthy that the Minister for Finance has made a $500 million top-up to the
ComCare Endowment Fund. When I first thought of ComCare Endowment Fund, I wanted an endowment in order to ensure that MCYS will continue to have funds available even in the downturn. It has to be counter-cyclical, because in a downturn, when all other Ministries’ budgets have been cut, the social assistance budget may need to go up. When I first persuaded my colleagues to have a ComCare Endowment Fund, our target was only $1 billion. Now very generously, Minister for Finance has set a target of $1.5 billion. And today, it already stands at $1.3 billion. I belabour this point because I want to emphasise that we have the wherewithal to look after our people even in tough times. I can give this assurance that our social safety net is robust and quite unique, fully funded and sustainable for the long term. This is not the case in many other societies who pretend that they have got great social safety nets, because they are going to run into intense fiscal pressures in the years ahead.
Young Children
Let me now move on to young children.
Dr Lily Neo has spoken about the need for holistic and early support to be available for children in need. And I agree with her. The key to social mobility is to work with young children, in particular, their education. We had a long debate yesterday at the Ministry of Education’s COS session. But today I want to remind members that my Ministry has been investing considerably in early childhood education to make sure it is affordable, of high quality and accessible to all. That is why we raised the income caps for the
Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme (KiFAS) and the
Centre-based Financial Assistance Scheme for Childcare (CFAC), in order to benefit more children. In addition to having a larger group of children eligible, we have also made adjustments to the quantum. In this term of Parliament, the quantum of subsidies for both schemes has increased significantly. For instance, for the lowest income tier, we raised the maximum CFAC subsidies from $300 to $340; this is over and above the $300 universal subsidy. So in other words, the lowest-income family gets $340 every month available for childcare. For KiFAS, members of the House would be familiar that we raised it in this term of Parliament from $65 a month to $108 a month.
Mdm Halimah mentioned the need for deposits. There are start-ups, and there is a start-up grant available to ensure that even the deposit for uniforms and school textbooks will not be a hurdle. This allows me again to make the assurance that money will never be an impediment for children from low-income households accessing good-quality early childhood education; and ultimately, education in primary and secondary school and beyond. And we need to remind people that this is available, and I agree with members, we need to continue our outreach programmes to make sure that no parent ever keeps a child away from school simply because of worries about cashflow.
There were some queries about childcare costs rising.
Mdm Halimah brought that up, and I have been watching this very closely, and I agree with you that we have noticed some, especially private, childcare centres who have taken the opportunity that we have now given more subsidies to all parents to also raise prices. Some of those price rises may be justified if it has been accompanied by increased standards, increased and better infrastructure or better quality teachers. But beyond that, there is a free market operating, and that is why I have been pushing for this accelerated rate of an increased number of childcare centres to be established in order to promote more competition; and also while we are working closely with PCF and with NTUC’s First-Skool House, so that there will be anchor operators functioning in the same way like FairPrice does for supermarket and food products, to ensure that there is healthy competition, and fair pricing standards available. And in the years to come, I will ensure that there is even greater transparency and more information available on every childcare centre so that parents can make informed choices.
We have also enhanced our outreach and programming for children in need. Every year, MOE gives us a list of every child who has so far not been registered either in kindergarten or childcare. Our grassroots leaders and us will knock, door to door, to identify who is missing, why are they missing, are they overseas or is there a social problem. And we have also a whole range of other programmes, the
Healthy Start Programme, the Intensive Case Management pilot and the
Home Ownership Plus Education Scheme to help families and their children break out of the poverty cycle.
Since we passed the International Child Abduction Act and acceded to the
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction last year, my Ministry has also set up the
Singapore Central Authority in order to implement our obligations under this Convention. We will help ensure the return of children who are wrongfully removed from their state of habitual residence. And this works both ways. So the message to parents is, please comply with court orders. I know it is a very emotional, difficult thing, but do not breach court orders and kidnap your own children.
.
Youth
Let me now move on to our plans for youth. Nearly seven years ago, we conducted a nation-wide Youth Consultation Exercise, which enabled many young Singaporeans to participate and give us ideas. The legacy of that exercise continues today with the
SHINE Youth Festival, the Young ChangeMakers Grant,cthe new *SCAPE in Orchard Road and the Xtreme Skatepark at the East Coast. These are legacies of that exercise. We believe that it is time to conduct a second Youth Consultation Exercise, and we will embark on this in the later part of this year. I look forward to more fresh ideas from young Singaporeans.
Mdm Cynthia Phua has quite expressed concern about youths-at-risk and the issue of youth crime. First, let us put things in perspective. Our juvenile crime rate actually is stable. The same applies to our recidivism rate, if you include all youth offenders who have gone through our
Guidance Programme, or
probation, or stayed in our Boys’ Home or Girls’ Home. In fact, 80% of them do not re-offend within three years.
Good progress has been made over the years to lower the school attrition and to reduce re-offending. But I agree with members that we can do more, to improve coordination between the different agencies and Ministries, and in particular, focus upstream, especially on the risk factors. For instance, we know that a significant number of youths who dropped out of school prematurely will ultimately get into trouble, and they will end up in the criminal justice system within five years of leaving school. And once they end up in that system, there is a risk of recidivism. Although our recidivism rates may not be that high, but you can join the dots – school drop-outs, crime, entering a programme or a Home, then facing the possibility of re-offence. And that is why, arising from the recommendations of the Committee on the Prevention of Re-offending, which was chaired by the Minister of State for Education and Home Affairs, Mr Masagos, we decided to establish the
Central Youth Guidance Office (CYGO). Although this office sits within MCYS, it is an inter-Ministry office, which coordinates the work of MOE, MHA and MCYS, focusing on upstream, comprehensive integrated intervention and long-term follow-up. I think members of the House will support this programme. This programme will complement what is already available, such as the
Enhanced Step-Up and the StreetWise programmes.
The Central Youth Guidance Office will be piloting the
Youth GO! Programme. We will start with the North East CDC. This programme will focus on outreach, on youth who are currently not involved in any of our programmes. We hope to engage them in meaningful activities and to bring them back into the fold of the community. And we have set aside a sum of $1.2 million for this pilot project in the next two years.
We will also develop an inter-agency
Youth Information System to implement members’ suggestion for a comprehensive and shared database, so that the youth-at-risk and the youth-at-risk factors will be shared between MOE, MHA and MCYS. This will first allow us to draw a composite picture of the problem as well as the longitudinal data that will help inform future policy formulation.
We will continue to provide a safe and supportive environment for our youths in residential care. We want to introduce a wider and more engaging range of academic, vocational and therapeutic programmes at the Boys’ Complex and the Girls’ Home, to cater to the different needs, risk profile and aspirations of these boys and girls. We want to ensure that they are not there just for punishment, but their time with us will result in them emerging with skills – both vocational and emotional skills – so that they can grow up to be contributing, well-functioning, well-balanced adults. We will be working with MOE, WDA and the Prisons, in order to enhance the educational and vocational framework in our Homes. We will also introduce a more targeted and standardised assessment to better tailor our intervention to the needs of these youths.
In line with these changes, MCYS will spend $60 million to expand the Boys’ Complex, not because I am expecting a flood of new entrants, but to provide a better environment for them.
We will also enhance post-care support. After discharge, we will follow them up to the age of 21, in order to help guide them and keep them on the straight and narrow path.
It is true that MCYS, MOE and MHA can do more, and we can work collaboratively, more effectively and more synergistically. I want to emphasise that we need the support of the community, and not just the VWOs but employers as well. And I want to acknowledge enlightened employers like Aleoca Pro, Secret Recipe, Adrenalin Events & Education and NK Hairworks, who have helped our youths re-integrate into society. And I hope we will have more enlightened employers come on board and join us in this cause.
Persons with Disabilities
Current Masterplan
Mr Chairman, let me now turn to the disability sector and
Ms Denise Phua has as usual made an impassioned and important speech which I listened to carefully.
One of the things which Ms Phua asked for was to extend basic health care insurance to those born with congenital diseases. MOH is reviewing this, but we are not in a position to make specific announcements yet.
She asked us to study the daily challenges faced by major disability groups, especially those who are poor, and she gave a very apt example of a person who is deaf and depends on sign language interpretation to integrate, or to access mainstream services and participate in mainstream life. At a larger scale, it is also what we are trying to do with assistive technologies, to ensure that whenever tools or specific services are needed, we will look at a means-tested way to help those, especially who may not be able to afford the extra services or the extra technology they may need. So we will continue to work on that.
She has also asked us to review the norm cost of the Day Activity Centres. We will do this.
So, let us now go on with my substantive points on disability. A few months ago, we made a major announcement, to ensure that every Singapore citizen child, who needs to attend the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children, receives a $300 base subsidy. In addition to that, low income families receive an additional means-tested subsidy from the Government, and that amount can go up to $600. So it’s $300, plus $600, for low-income families - $900. In addition to that, we know that those who are most needy also receive help from VWOs, very often the service providers themselves, as well as from the Community Chest. This allows me to say - hand over heart - that for the low income families with disabled children, money is not the limiting factor. Having said that, we should also recognise that recently, MOE announced an extension of the Financial Assistance Scheme to Special Education schools as well. My Ministry and
NCSS will obviously have to do some fundraising to help them. If you are a low-income family, or a lower-middle income family, and you have a disabled child who needs to access education, help is available, money is not the impediment. I believe this was a point that
Mr Laurence Wee wanted reassurance, so I hope I have given him some cause for reassurance.
Now, if you solve the money side of it, there are still other challenges. We have been pushing to increase the number of EIPIC centres. In 2007, we have 10. Today we have 13 and we increased the number of places from 1,400 to 2,000. But with more subsidies and the number of places, the demand also went up. So we will have to work harder and over the next four years, we intend to build another seven EIPIC centres, and to further increase the capacity to 2,700 places. I am sure in due time, demand will also increase, and we will have to respond accordingly. But the point is we have made a lot of progress just within this term of Parliament alone.
For older children, MOE has increased the age limit for Special Education to 21 so that students will be able to continue acquiring vocational skills beyond the age of 18. And from this year, SPED students will also begin their vocational education from the age of 13. Vocational education without jobs is a dead end. So we have also been working with enlightened employers who have constituted the Enabling Employers Network. This is an alliance of private sector champions, who have provided work opportunities, attachments and internships to provide our students from SPED schools with real exposure to real work.
The Enabling Employers Network has also launched two Centres for Training and Integration in hospitality and call centres as part of the employment value chain framework. More than 450 disabled persons have benefited from the Open Door Fund, which provides grants to employers for workplace redesign and apprenticeship opportunities for the disabled.
In 2008, we set up the
Centre for Enabled Living (CEL), a one-stop information and referral centre for persons with disabilities. It also administers the Caregiver Training Grant. I believe
Mr Chiam mentioned the need to support caregivers. So there is help available for caregivers. The work of CEL has so far benefited more than 2,000 families with disabled members. CEL of course continues to provide public education, and to advocate the inclusion of the disabled in society. We also have a LivEnabled Week and a campaign. There is attention, there is support and there are resources available.
I still remember launching the first ten wheel-chair accessible buses. This was at the Pasir Ris Bus Terminal in 2006. Today, I am glad that we are well on our way to making all public buses wheelchair-accessible by 2020, and we will have at least two barrier-free access routes in more than 70% of all our MRT stations by the end of this year. The Town Councils have all been working very hard to upgrade our precincts with Barrier-Free Accessibility features.
In sports, we have made sure that all
Singapore Sports Council facilities meet Barrier-Free Accessibility requirements. The S
ingapore Disability Sports Council and our National Sports Associations run various sporting activities and programmes, as
Ms Denise Phua has advocated for. And disabled athletes who win medals at international competitions such as the Paralympics – people like Yip Pin Xiu and Laurentia Tan – are heroes and are recognised icons for Singapore. They are national icons, and we should recognise them as such.
Ms Denise Phua chaired a parents’ workgroup on financial security for the disabled. And she echoed concerns that parents have for the long term security of the children, when the parents pass on. Because of her work and the work of the workgroup, if you look back over the last few years, we have set up a Special Needs Trust Company, we will be amending the CPF Act to implement the Special Needs Savings Scheme, and we will continue to provide advice and counselling to parents, to enable them to plan for future financial security.
Ms Denise Phua asked about the Central Office. We have a Standing Committee on Disability (SCD), which coordinates across all Ministries. It is chaired by my Permanent Secretary, and I want to emphasise that there is no lack of high-level attention to this issue.
Next Masterplan
The current Enabling Masterplan will end soon, and we will review and we will have another Masterplan from 2012 to 2016, and although we shouldn’t pre-judge the outcome of that review, there are a couple of aspects I felt we should start focusing.
One, there is empirical evidence that there is an increasing number of pre-school children who are diagnosed with learning difficulties, and speech and language disorders. Our vision is that these children should stay in the mainstream, and that they should be assisted by appropriate services, in order to keep them in the mainstream. As suggested by
Mr Laurence Wee, we will enhance the ability of preschool teachers – this is in mainstream childcare centres and kindergartens – to diagnose potential disabilities, and to either provide or recommend the additional intervention which they need.
The second area of emphasis is to look at adult disability. This is something people like Ms Denise Phua and Dr Lee Wei Ling have been campaigning for a very long time. We recognise that with better health care and better community support, people with disability will also live longer. Increased life expectancy applies across the board. And that also then means that there will be challenges, especially in a future where we envisage smaller family sizes and a rapidly ageing population. Consequently, we will be developing a new Day Activity Centre for persons with intellectual disabilities, and I will take up Mr Laurence Wee’s suggestion that we will review the norm cost as well. We will also build a new Home for the disabled by 2013. We will commission a study to project the future demand for disability homes in the next 15 years. The next two decades are going to be critical because of the extremely fast pace of ageing, and we will make sure that that plan does not exclude the disabled.
The $1 billion Community Silver Trust is another big boost to the sector, because it enables us to work with and support VWOs who are planning to provide innovative new services for elderly disabled persons. I expect that we will see new ideas, new models of group homes, new concepts of community-based care facilities, as well as the piloting of new technology, which hopefully can improve care and also lower costs. It will be a challenge.
The Enabling Masterplan has allowed us to make much progress over the last five years. We are not perfect, and I do not think we have arrived at a hundred percent. There were 31 recommendations, and we have acted on every single one of them. And at this point, I really want to thank the advocates. Ms Phua is in this House, but there are many other cases outside this House, passionately, diligently, for years after years, pushed us to do more, given us new ideas, raise and mobilise support from the community. And therefore, I would also be in a position to inform Ms Fatimah Lateef that we will accede to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, and we will do so by next year. But we are doing so not because that is the be all and end all, but because we actually have done a lot, and there have never been so many opportunities for the disabled to participate in the mainstream of our society.
Social Service Sector
If I may now move to the social service sector, the
Office of the Commissioner of Charities was set up within my Ministry in 2006, and we established the people sector-led
Charity Council the year after. Together, these two institutions have strengthened the standards of governance in our charities, through a balanced regulatory framework that facilitates good work of the charities as well as give the public the confidence to donate, and knowing that the money will be properly stewarded and properly spent. Hence, to help the charities become more effective, a
Code of Governance was introduced, and this Code of Governance has been refined earlier this year. Beyond governance, we also continue to provide training grants for charity board members and key staff, so that they can be updated on proper ways to manage donors, conduct fundraising and volunteer management.
Mr Chairman, let me move on to what we are spending on social services, and the trend over the last three years. A couple of things I want to point out: first, is that the total sum is more than half a billion dollars; second thing to note, that about half of that comes from the Government, and the other half from the community, and this is a reasonable balance when we talk about the Many Helping Hands model. In fact, even in the downturn, we noticed that donation amounts, especially from individuals, continued to hold steady. With the Minister of Finance’s extension of the 250% tax deduction for another five years and the introduction of the Community Silver Trust of $1 billion, I am confident that Singaporeans will continue to be generous, and the VWOs should continue to be confident that the next five years, in fact the next decade, will be a decade of growth for them.
I also want to share a short anecdote, because I do not want people to think that this is all about money. The Compassion Fund has a programme called Share-A-Meal. This basically raises funds for students where the family has lost suddenly a main breadwinner. One day, when the VWO was opening the cans – most of it was coins because you are raising funds from other students – they found two pieces of folded green paper. It wasn’t a $5 note. When they unfolded it, they found out that a 7-year-old boy had actually put in his own meal coupons into the tin. He put in his own meal coupons, because he is from a disadvantaged family, he was given the coupons to spend for himself to buy food, and he sacrificed his food to share with others. Of course, the boy didn’t know that the coupons are only valid in his own canteen, but the point is the motivation, the heart behind that act of giving by this little 7-year-old boy from a disadvantaged family. I think this is a very heartwarming story, a true story. And it’s a timely reminder to us that philanthropy is not just about opening wallets, but in the words of the social worker who shared this story with me, it is also about opening hearts. And we need to make sure that even as we improve our processes and build infrastructure and provide more money, never, never lose sight of the heart, and the need to open hearts.
Dr Maliki and
Dr Lily Neo have asked about the plans to address the supply, the development and the retention of social workers.
First, the SIM University and Nanyang Polytechnic are now running programmes at both degree and diploma levels, in order to enhance the supply of trained social service professionals. We also give subsidies, scholarships and training awards to help in-service personnel attain social work qualifications. In addition, we provide training and upgrading opportunities for social workers, through the
Professional and Leadership Development Scheme.
Second, we enhanced the image and professionalism of social workers because we now have formal accreditation. As of January this year, 835 social workers and practitioners have been accredited. We also have awards like the Outstanding Social Worker Award, which is given every year by the President, to recognise special social workers who are role models to others.
Third, we have raised the funding norms for social workers regularly. And in the last five years alone, our funding for VWOs, who are the employers of this group of professionals, has increased by up to 27%, including a 14% increase last year. And a recent survey by NCSS suggested almost all the VWOs surveyed have increased their salaries or intend to do so shortly.
Our focus this year is to continue to strengthen the professional and leadership capabilities of social workers, and we are also glad to receive the $20 million hongbao from the Minister for Finance. And he has told me specifically, use this money to enhance the professionalism of social workers. So it’s not going to be to buy equipment, or to buy hardware, but to work on the software. We will use this to support social workers who want to develop and further their careers, either to become ‘specialists’, or for the more senior ones, to become supervisors. And ultimately I hope to see more leaders, leaders not chosen by me, but peer-selected leaders who are role models, who are repositories of wisdom and experience, and who can lead the profession. One of the key legacies which I want to leave behind is to put the social work profession on a high and stable pedestal. You are professionals, you are the key people to fix hearts and fix relationships, and you deserve the remuneration, resources and recognition that for perhaps a long time we have under-delivered. But I hope social workers will agree with me that we have made considerable progress, and we will continue to push forward.
Let me now move on to
Family Service Centres. We are going to build more Family Service Centres, and to elevate the standards. I announced last year that we will build five new FSCs by 2013, bringing the total number to 41. The first three will be at Chai Chee, Telok Blangah and Tampines. The FSC at Chai Chee has already begun operations, and the centre at Telok Blangah will be ready by the end of the year. For the third new FSC at Tampines, we have invited agencies to submit proposals, and I believe there is keen interest to run this centre. The two remaining FSCs will be in Admiralty and Punggol, and they should be ready by 2012 and 2013 respectively.
I want to give
Dr Lily Neo an assurance that the FSCs are not like doctors dispensing pills without making a diagnosis. They are professional social workers; they are properly trained, as highly motivated as doctors although not as well paid as doctors, doing their best to fix problems. And when you are dealing with social work problems, it’s not just a person, it’s a family; even when you are dealing with the family, often it’s a community. So there is a very, very heavy burden on the social workers. My response is to provide more resources and more support, so that social workers can fulfil the already heavy, onerous tasks which are on their shoulders.