Ethos Issue 4, Apr 2008

Reinventing Singapore’s Electronic Public Services
Karen Wong

THE SERVICE IMPERATIVE FOR CHANGE
Dramatic changes in the nature of public service delivery have been enabled by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution in the past decade. Yet they are not—and should not be—motivated by technological change. Instead, they have been driven and guided by a fundamental shift in the public sector’s service mindset.

The traditional approach to public service delivery conceived of a single customer profile, with which the government agency interacted according to a clearly defined set of rules and accountabilities. In this “one-size-fits-all” model, any special needs were handled as exceptions to the standardised “fair treatment” provided as the norm. As public agencies embraced customer service values, they began to offer customised and even personalised services to differentiated groups of customers within their purview.

However, the fundamental truth of public interaction with the Government is that often, many agencies are involved even in basic activities such as buying a new house or starting a new business. Further, customers who use public services do not differentiate between different government agencies—they see and expect the Government to operate as a seamless entity.

There is also time pressure on the Public Service to deliver on the ICT promise of ubiquitous connectivity and service on-demand. One approach is to modularise as many public services as possible, creating Lego blocks out of fundamental units of services, which can be quickly assembled in different combinations on the fly to meet diverse requests on demand.

This implies more than just the need for front-end integration of services. It also calls for the need to better share data among and across agencies—not just to reap immediate service efficiencies and synergies, but also to enhance business intelligence and customer understanding in order to understand the customer base more broadly across the public sector. This is no small feat, as it would require a review of current policies and legislation limiting agencies’ ability to share data, to streamline processes, and leverage common IT systems. More subtly but just as vital is the nurturing of a whole-of-government mindset among public officers not yet accustomed to designing public services and reviewing public policies across different agencies. There needs to be clear recognition, that what the Government can achieve as an integrated whole is much greater than the sum of the individual agencies.

TOWARDS GREATER E-ENGAGEMENT
The Public Service must remain responsive to changing needs, aspirations and circumstances of Singaporeans over time. Although Singapore was ranked as the world’s first in Accenture’s 2007 report on Excellence in Customer Service, the most recent UN eGovernment Survey (released in January 2008) rated Singapore unfavourably due to, amongst other things, poor showing in the e-participation index of our citizens in public policy discussions and formulation process.

In the next generation of e-Government, electronic public services must go beyond the merely transactional. They will also involve electronic means for government to more effectively engage citizens in the formulation of public policies. Singapore has already started on this effort.

Since 2005, the Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home (REACH) website (http://www.reach.gov.sg) has offered a series of online channels including discussion forums, online chats, blogs and emails, in order to gather public feedback as well as facilitate discussion on government policies. Once a year, REACH also organises an eTownhall discussion (using its online chat facility) to allow citizens to have real-time discussions with politicians upon the release of the Budget Speech.

It remains to be seen whether such forms of engagement are sufficient in the eyes of our citizens, as well as international bodies. What is clear, however, is that electronic channels are no longer a niche or alternative means for delivering information and services only when it is convenient or cost-effective to do so. e-Government has become the primary interface between the Government and Singapore’s citizens and businesses. It is a reality that the Public Service has to embrace.