Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010

Thinking About the Future:
What the Public Service Can Do
Peter Ho

In this regard, one important idea is to have a small but dedicated group of people to think about the future. The skill-sets needed for long-term policy planning are different from those needed to deal with more immediate volatility and crisis. Both are important. But those charged with thinking about the future should be given the freedom and allocated the bandwidth to focus on this important role without getting bogged down in day-to-day routines. These people will become repositories of patterns that can be used to facilitate decision-making, and especially to prepare for "unknown unknowns". What we need from this small group of people is the capacity to conduct strategic thinking about future possibilities to facilitate more considered decision-making, perhaps even to conduct policy experiments on possible alternative futures, or policymaking by discovery.

A CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES
In order to put these principles into operation and strengthen our capacity to think about the future, we have set up a "Centre for Strategic Futures" (CSF) in PSD. Over time, together with the Strategic Policy Office and supported by RAHS, the CSF will become the focal point of futures-related work in the Singapore Government. It will work towards promoting whole-of-government thinking on the key strategic issues of the day. It will support the development of capabilities within the Singapore Government in futures methodologies through its core functions.

The Civil Service College will play an important and complementary role to the CSF, by helping civil servants develop the competencies, instincts and habits of mind to tackle uncertainties and manage complexity. This will be done through seminars, programmes and courses on complexity as well as futures thinking and tools, and the documentation of case studies on how the civil service has applied futures work.

While the CSF will play a role in the cultivation of the Government’s preparedness for the future, every ministry will also need to build up its individual capability. To facilitate this, we have just established a "Strategic Futures Network", to be made up of Deputy Secretaries from each Ministry. We expect that the Network will play a catalytic role in promoting futures work within the civil service, by expanding the reach of the CSF into the ministries and agencies. The Network will have a key role in establishing a common vocabulary for strategic planning, and nurturing the instincts and habits of strategic whole-of-government thinking about the future.

CONCLUSION
Overall, the CSF will seek to build on the work of scenario planning in facilitating a common, whole-of-government vocabulary for strategic planning. This is important not just to analyse the future, but also to understand the present.

To deal with consistency bias and cognitive dissonance is to nurture in our people the instincts and skills to be sensitive to discontinuities. In an increasingly uncertain and complex environment, it is imperative that we have the courage to open our minds and take bold but pragmatic steps forward. The CSF is an important step in building capability in futures work, and to develop and strengthen inter-agency collaboration for networked government. The CSF will play a key part in keeping us at the leading edge of governance, enhancing our decision-making capability and the service that we provide to Singaporeans.

Page 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5