VIRTUOUS CY VIRTUOUS Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development distills “ insights and derives lessons from Singapore’s development that could be applied in different contexts. What are crucial and indispensable for success are committed and competent political leadership and bold national policies; strong institutions and an effective and clean bureaucracy; and most important, making people the centre “ C of development and reform processes. This book is a must-read for political leaders, LES: policymakers, and students of public policy. THE SINGAPOR Noeleen Heyzer, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Singapore’s public service excellence and its multiplier effect on development are “ internationally recognised and acknowledged. This book analyses the features of Singapore’s remarkable development achievements, amongst the most critical being a visionary leadership with a strong commitment to a ‘developmentalist’ agenda; E VIRTUOUS CYCLES: a competent, efficient, clean civil service; and governance innovations coupled P with bold policy reforms. It examines the policies, institutions, and systems behind UBLIC S Singapore’s success in creating a public service that delivers high quality services such as housing, education and healthcare for its population, is resilient to crises, and is THE SINGAPORE PUBLIC a key driver for economic growth and long term development. In this it provides E valuable lessons to development practitioners, which go well beyond Singapore’s RVIC SERVICE AND NATIONAL unique development context. And it comes at a very opportune time, when the international community is searching for ways to improve governance and service “ E AND delivery, and is looking for best practices in accelerating progress towards achieving DEVELOPMENT Dr N. C. Saxena the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. N Ajay Chhibber, UN Assistant Secretary-General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and A T Director for Asia and the Pacific IONAL Political will and public service capabilities were the pillars that created the virtuous “ cycles for sustainable socio-economic development in Singapore. This book describes DE the public policies and institutions that translated Singapore’s developmental vision V E into reality. Dr Saxena outlines principles and practices that would be invaluable “ LOPM for any country seeking to create such virtuous cycles of continuous national development. E Prof. Neo Boon-Siong, Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, N Singapore, and lead author of Dynamic Governance: Embedding Culture, Capabilities and t Change in Singapore This UNDP commissioned book by Dr Saxena on Singapore demonstrates a “ strong, nay, indisputable, correlation between the choices that leaders make and the outcomes that their people get. Mindful of the uniqueness of each environment, the “ author offers a GPS that various countries might recalibrate and re-set to successfully D r navigate development’s unchartered paths. N . C Prof. M J Balogun, Founding editor of the African Journal of Public Administration and . Saxena Management, former Senior Adviser, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and author of Headhunting for World Peace VIRTUOUS CYCLES: THE SINGAPORE PUBLIC SERVICE AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Dr N. C. Saxena © 2011 United Nations Development Programme All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronics, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the United Nations Development Programme. The responsibility for opinions in this book rests solely with its author. Publication does not constitute an endorsement by the United Nations Development Programme or the institutions of the United Nations system, or the Civil Service College, Public Service Division or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore. ISBN: 978-981-08-8334-8 Front Cover Photo Credits: Old Singapore (top left) © National Archives Singapore; Economic Development Board (top right) © UN Photo/MB; Singapore city skyline (bottom left) © Singapore Tourism Board; Old and new housing (bottom right) © Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts / Kwan Sai Hoe ii | Disclaimer FOREWORD Good governance is one of the key challenges of our times – for both developing and developed countries. In a highly globalised world, governments are faced with increasingly complex and cross-cutting issues, such as economic volatility, adverse demographic trends and climate change. With a more educated and vocal citizenry, savvy in the use of social media, public servants are finding themselves under ever keener public scrutiny. Against this backdrop, the provision of public services and infrastructure has taken on new dimensions. It is no longer sufficient for governments to formulate and implement policies in silos – the problems that face the public sector today require effective engagement of citizens, as well as an integrated and adaptable public service that is able to anticipate and rapidly respond to changes in the global environment. In this context, this book on Singapore’s public service governance experience, commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme and jointly supported by the Civil Service College and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is timely. Singapore has had a long history of cooperation with the UNDP. During the early years of our development, when we were confronted with pressing problems such as economic survival, inadequate infrastructure and poor social amenities, the UNDP provided Singapore with invaluable technical assistance. The sharing of developmental knowledge and expertise played a vital role in the development of fundamental national policies which have transformed Singapore from a small, struggling third world country with no natural resources, to a modern city-state. Having benefited from technical assistance in our earlier years, Singapore has been sharing our developmental experience with friends from around the world since the 1960s. The establishment of the Singapore Cooperation Programme in 1992, to contribute to human resource capacity building and South-South development cooperation in a more coordinated manner, is testament to Singapore's commitment to this objective. With the publication of this book, together with UNDP, Singapore has indeed come full circle. Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development | iii The Singapore Public Service has had, and will continue to have, its fair share of challenges. Some of the issues that we grapple with are not entirely dissimilar to those faced by other countries. We do not presume to have all the answers, but we hope that this book will be a meaningful contribution to the global conversation on how the public service can best serve the people. Peter Ong Head, Civil Service Singapore iv | Foreword PREFACE Singapore’s exemplary public service cadre is regarded as one of the most disciplined bureaucracies in the world, because of its efficiency, low levels of corruption and a high standard of accountability to the government and the political leadership of the country. Its contribution since independence to the success of Singapore is widely recognised. This is particularly noteworthy because the economic success of Singapore has been and continues to be strongly driven by a government that is heavily involved in a number of key sectors, such as housing, education, and industrial policy. “Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National Development” both addresses the issues which make Singapore’s public service effective and seeks to explain why. What were and are the policy choices that Singapore made and continues to make, the institutional arrangements and incentives it has put in place, and the investment decisions that have allowed Singapore to become an island of excellence in the area of the management and delivery of public services? How has it created an enabling environment that empowers public service institutions to cope with and manage change? How has the capacity of the civil service been developed and enhanced to keep it at the cutting edge? And finally, and perhaps most importantly from the perspective of UNDP, what are the replicable lessons that developing and developed countries alike can learn from Singapore? This book also seeks to analyse how Singapore’s government institutions have coped with change in the context of fast accelerating globalisation. This should enable an understanding of how Singapore’s policies, institutions and incentives can be adapted to different country contexts. The book also elaborates on some of the challenges facing the Singapore Public Service going forward. More specifically, the book examines the capacity development policies and interventions that Singapore put in place with respect to its public service institutions and the civil service, drawing lessons for both developing as well as developed countries. Based on a large number of interviews with academics, government officials (working in Ministries as well as Statutory Boards) and a review of secondary literature, this book highlights the lessons and best practices on governance and service delivery from Singapore’s public service experience, and analyses the links and positive multipliers between Virtuous Cycles: The Singapore Public Service and National