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Ethos Issue 4, Apr 2008
Reinventing Singapore’s Electronic Public Services
Karen Wong
Building on its acclaimed online public services, Singapore is developing the next generation of truly interactive government technologies.
In 1997, Singapore took bold steps to make public services available through electronic means. Electronic public services were seen as a strategic initiative to enhance Singapore’s readiness to plug into an increasingly complex and networked global economy, and as a means to achieve dramatic improvements in service delivery standards, by harnessing the efficiencies and synergies of emerging information and communications technology. By the end of 2001, more than 1,600 public services were offered online and made accessible through the Internet 24/7, from anywhere in the world. Guided by three e-Government Master Plans,1 Singapore has built up significant understanding and capabilities within the Public Service to leverage electronic service delivery channels to its advantage.
In the past decade, the Public Service has won many international awards and accolades for its e-Government efforts, and is even beginning to export its knowledge and expertise in electronic service delivery. This is a solid achievement that has put Singapore at the forefront of e-Government rankings worldwide. But is this enough? There is clear recognition that the rapid pace of change, a savvier generation of citizens and businesses, and the interconnectedness of public needs will put yet greater demands on the Public Service and the e-infrastructure it has put in place to deliver its core services.
FROM ONLINE SERVICES TO INTEGRATED GOVERNMENT
Singapore’s success has been due in no small part to its nimbleness and adaptability to a changing environment. Decentralisation and autonomy have enabled public agencies to be quick and decisive. But this has also brought about fragmentation, resulting in loss of systemic efficiency and economies of scale. More importantly, there could be sub-optimisation at the whole-of-government level.
This is especially pertinent given the increasingly multi-faceted and inter-related nature of public needs. The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority could be very efficient in registering a new company, but the company could not start work if our telecommunications infrastructure takes a long time to wire up. In order for our trade and logistics industry to thrive, related agencies such as the sea ports, airports, maritime authorities and customs and have to work together to maintain seamless traffic and inter-connectivity.
In the initial years of Singapore’s
e-Government effort, there was an urgency to make public services available online. Public service agencies were strongly encouraged to establish a presence in cyberspace—this resulted in a widespread proliferation of corporate websites, many of which carried little more than basic information about the organisation’s mandate and portfolio of services. In parallel, the eCitizen Portal established opportunities for agencies in charge of related functions to offer their services as an online package for the convenience of customers. This approach was initially focused on front-end bundling of information and basic application and query activities.
However, efforts are now being made to achieve true service integration, through the redesign of business process and flow-through for related public services across different agencies. For instance, an original process might be removed or simplified, such as when another agency has already undertaken necessary steps for validation.
Also under review is the strict delineation between websites that offer government content and those that offer commercial content. The new consumer wants to receive a range of holistic services readily from a single location, regardless of whether the service is of governmental or commercial origin; he also wants these services delivered to him on-demand in an engaging and refreshing manner, with service standards comparable to those of the best available commercial online services in the world.
Progressively, public agencies are partnering with the private sector to provide government information and services together with relevant commercial content on commercial portals. With the introduction of the Public-Private-People Integration (3Pi) approach in 2005, government projects have started looking into opportunities to collaborate across the public and private sectors in order to deliver a holistic range of services with radical improvements and synergies.
Mindef’s miw.com (subsequently replaced by NS Portal2) and LTA’s One.motoring3 are forerunners in this effort, with government owned but privately run portals delivering trusted public services alongside rich commercial offerings of relevance to NSmen and motorists respectively. In 2006, IDA also outsourced its MyeCitizen personalised portal, allowing the private sector to bring more vibrancy into the service through introduction of useful commercial services such as Travel Buddy and Moving House.
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