(with thanks to ST, 17 May 08)
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Q & A WITH CIVIL SERVICE HEAD
'We disagree with ministers on many things...'
'The job of leadership is to make sure that mavericks, even though they have a hard time, are not destroyed in the process of pushing their ideas. I think many leaders in the civil service understand and have the wisdom to manage these people.'
CIVIL SERVICE HEAD PETER HO
The image problem
Singapore's civil service has been lauded for its efficiency, but it is not particularly known for creativity. Is that fair?
I think it stems from a misunderstanding of what the civil service does and what creativity is all about.
I'm not even sure this is an issue, when you think of the many policy innovations that are at the cutting edge. Governments from around the world come to Singapore to study what we do: PS21 (an initiative started in the mid-1990s to prepare the public service for the 21st century), Central Provident Fund, urban planning and, increasingly, our educational system and our health system.
These show that we have in our system a willingness to try things out once we're convinced it makes sense to do so.
I think we sell ourselves short. We know we're very good at doing things and implementation, but we don't know how to sell ourselves. We don't have the PowerPoint skills of the consultants who can present a brilliant case but who have no track record at all.
Is this something that should be fixed?
I don't think it is something we should do just for the sake of, if you will, correcting a misperception that the service lacks creativity.
But it's important in a different way. If we don't correct this misperception, then it may begin to become received wisdom not just among the public but even among civil servants, who'll say, yah, maybe we lack creativity, maybe we can't think out of the box, maybe there's something wrong with us, which is far from the truth.
Engaging the public
In an interview a year and a half ago, you spoke about the need for the service to engage the public more. What progress has there been on this front? Has change been fast enough?
These are not things which you can just teach. Many of these skills - dealing with media, engaging in what might seem, at first glance, to be sensitive subjects - are things that come with experience and confidence. We are already doing a lot today, probably a lot more than most governments, and certainly much more than we ever did in the past.
We actively canvass for public feedback on policies, in focus- group discussions, in public forums, and on the Internet.
Of course, we can do more, and the civil service is committed to doing more. But you cannot expect dramatic changes in the space of 18 months. It is an ongoing process, and improvements will be continuous, but not necessarily always dramatic.
The mavericks
To what extent is the civil service able to accommodate mavericks?
I've a view about mavericks. A maverick, if he believes very strongly in something, should have the courage and the persistence to press his ideas. If he gives up after meeting resistance the first time, he's not a maverick.
The job of leadership is to make sure that mavericks, even though they have a hard time, are not destroyed in the process of pushing their ideas. I think many leaders in the civil service understand and have the wisdom to manage these people.
It will be very difficult to find somebody who's prepared to stand up and explain why he disagrees with me.
But if he can explain, and he believes strongly enough, then I'll give him the time of day, and he may change my mind.
Has your mind ever been changed?
Of course.
Examples?
I can't give you examples because my mind has been changed enough times that nothing in particular stands out.
Civil servants and political masters
What is the power dynamic between civil servants and their political masters? How has this evolved, compared to the days of the pioneering civil servants?
I don't believe that there's been any fundamental change in the relationship.
People either don't understand, or they forget: If we have a disagreement, we do so outside the glare of publicity. This is the deal, if you will. It was true for the first generation, and it's still true now.
Once a decision is taken, your job is to back up that decision even if you had disagreed with it. If you disagree strongly, there is, of course, the option of resigning. But we cannot be resigning over everything. So you better choose your point of disagreement very carefully.
We disagree with ministers on many things. Sometimes, the minister comes round to our point of view; sometimes, we go round to his point of view. Sometimes, we just agree to disagree. But we know that once a decision has been made, we carry it through. If it turns out that it was a bad decision, we just pick up the pieces.
In some other administrations, they may air their grievances publicly, but then it becomes very ruinous to the integrity of the thing.
Some people argue that high salaries may make senior civil servants afraid to voice their genuine opinions since so much is at stake. How do you respond to that?
I have not seen, personally, a situation in which an official is under threat because of a disagreement. You have to give the system more credit.
We have our disagreements, and it's our job to offer an honest, objective opinion. But once a decision is taken, everybody has to fall in behind it.
Government accountability
Because of the Mas Selamat Kastari case, the Prime Minister has spoken about the need for accountability while warning against witch-hunts. How do you strike a balance?
If something goes wrong, and clearly many things went wrong during the Mas Selamat escape, you must first find out why these things went wrong. Was it systemic? Was it negligence on the part of individuals? Was it complacency?
Depending on the findings, you have to decide where the buck stops. Conceivably, the buck can go all the way up, but you have to draw the line somewhere reasonable.
People right at the top have a lot of other things on their minds. They're not dealing with the details.
Of course, their job is to make sure the system is in place. If they've done so, and it's not executed properly down the line, how do you hold him accountable?
Everybody feels bad about it. You can be sure that Mr Wong (Kan Seng), the permanent secretary for home affairs and the director of the Internal Security Department all feel very bad about the whole thing. In fact, the whole Government feels very bad that this Mas Selamat escaped.
But what is the appropriate response? Commit some kind of metaphorical hara-kiri to show your regret, or you just get on with the job and deal with the problem?
LI XUEYING
P
UBLIC SERVICE WEEKWhat black swans teach civil servants
This week marks the inaugural Public Service Week, during which the service's 110,000 officers will take a pledge to serve Singaporeans. LI XUEYING talks to civil service chief Peter Ho about what today's civil service requires.
CIVIL service head Peter Ho expects to see more birds in Singapore's future. Black swans, to be exact.
Black swans are his metaphor for rare, extreme and hard-to-predict events that may come out of nowhere to throw Singapore into a tailspin.
'One of the higher purposes of being a civil servant is to think about the unthinkable, to plan for the unexpected,' Mr Ho says in an interview with Insight.
'This is a big challenge because it is not a mindset that comes naturally to people.'
The Black Swan happens to be the title of a bestseller written by a Lebanese American derivatives trader-turned-university scholar, Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Having made his fortune with the right bets when the stock market crashed in October 1987, Mr Taleb decided to devote his subsequent years to studying 'the impact of the highly improbable'- the subtitle of his book.
People used to assume all swans were white - until black swans were discovered in Australia in the 17th century.
'One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single...black bird,' says Mr Taleb.
In today's world, the unexpected will be on the increase, says Mr Ho. 'We are entering a period of great change because the established order is being replaced by a new order, and I mean this in both a political sense and economic sense.'
He explains why.
The bipolar world of the Cold War has been replaced by a multi-polar one, with countries aligned according to issues and interests. 'It's a much more complex situation...it's sometimes very difficult to predict the outcomes on any given issue.'
He gives an example of how one event can lead to unexpected knock-on effects in different quarters: The rise of China and India.
In one direction, it leads to higher demand for energy, and rising energy prices.
In another direction, it results in more carbon emissions and thus climate change, affecting food production and, therefore, food prices.
In a third direction, it leads to unexpected diseases as the equatorial belt moves north.
'We can expect more surprises simply because we do not understand how, in this interconnected and globalised world, things really connect to each other,' he concludes.
Dynamic governance
PEERING into the future occupies a large part of Mr Ho's time. Indeed, the civil service in Singapore seems to have made keeping ahead of surprises its mission in life, oxymoronic as that may sound.
Still, black swans or not, the definition of good governance is fundamentally unchanged, asserts Mr Ho. This is still about 'delivering the goods to the people in a timely manner, at a cost that the country can afford'.
The process, however, has become more challenging.
One critical skill today is the ability to innovate. 'I don't mean just incremental innovations. I mean things that can change the rules of the game and can transform. The organisation that can discern a pattern and identify an opportunity first will have the first-mover advantage,' he says.
Singapore did it in the past. In the 1950s and 1960s, at a time when others decried foreign investments as a form of imperialism, it decided to woo multinationals here.
Today, says Mr Ho, the building of integrated resorts is another example.
He concedes that Singapore does not have first-mover advantage in this, but notes that it has 'energised' the country and transformed how investors look at Singapore now.
'We changed a long-held view about certain things...I think it got investors to look again at Singapore and say, hey, something is happening here.
'So when you combine it with other things like F1 and all that, the aggregated effect is quite transformational.'
So it is important that all civil servants are empowered to 'offer ideas and innovate', he says.
The PS21 movement started in the mid-1990s is one such avenue: under this, officers can offer ideas and inventions to improve the service.
While these may be 'incremental innovations', they help create a mindset that will be more receptive when 'big changes' come, explains Mr Ho.
A second skill set is the ability to manage risks and complexities. As part of this, the Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Experimentation Centre was launched last year.
Run by the Defence Science and Technology Agency, it utilises technology to sieve through masses of data for signs of danger - not only in traditional security areas like terrorism but also in other areas like climate change and financial market instabilities.
The system 'spotted' the current food problem, but because it is still in 'a very experimental mode', did not connect all the dots together, says Mr Ho.
More resources will be poured into the centre, he promises.
The global nature of many problems also means that individual agencies will no longer be able to look at them in isolation, thus necessitating what is called the 'networked government' approach - a third skill set.
An example of this was during Singapore's recent bid to host the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.
The International Olympic Committee had doubts about whether the Athletes' Village in Singapore could be constructed in time. To assuage its concerns, the 11 government regulatory agencies involved - ranging from the National Parks Board to the Manpower Ministry - banded together to get the task done.
Coordinating them is the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), which will ensure that the technical requirements of all the other agencies are complied with. For instance, if project consultants have problems involving multiple agencies, the BCA will step in to coordinate meetings.
'The 'networked government' approach was essential to our bid effort,' says Dr Francis Chong, a director at the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. He chairs the multi- agency secretariat.
To be sure, such a team approach does not come naturally to agencies used to their own narrower turf. There had to be what Mr Ho terms a 'culture change', a willingness for horizontal, cross-agency exchange of information.
'I think it's beginning to happen. We're getting our permanent secretaries to sit down together more, and share and talk about cross-agency strategic problems,' he says.
Close observers of the public service note other ways that it has evolved over the past four decades.
For instance, it has become more decentralised, observes public policy academic Neo Boon Siong, co-author of Dynamic Governance which was published last year.
Personnel hiring has been freed up, so statutory boards have their own pay scales. 'This is an attempt to get the talent needed, and be more responsive to the market,' he says.
Today's civil servants are also better educated, more cosmopolitan, and more self-assured, notes Mr Ho. 'This gives me the confidence that this generation has what it takes to confront the many and complex challenges ahead.'
The shifting profile of Singaporeans also means that the way the service interacts with the public has changed, notes Mr Tan Yew Soon, 54.
Twenty-five years ago, he was a rookie at the publications department in the then-ministry of culture. Today, he is director of information policy in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.
'In communicating policy, we have to be more explanatory and more persuasive,' he says.
Questions that remain
FOR all the recognition of the issues at stake and the steps that must be taken, some questions remain.
First, is there a disconnect between the head and the body?
While top civil servants espouse principles such as innovation, creativity and culture change, does the message filter all the way down? Are rank-and-file officers truly empowered?
'Sometimes, yes,' concedes Mr Ho, when asked if such a disconnect may exist.
'When you've some big idea, there's a limit to how far you can go round explaining. So you leave it to the individual permanent secretary to explain to his people why they do it.'
One solution is to introduce key ideas into courses run by the Civil Service College. Another is to increase communication. 'Communication is a very important part of culture change and persuading people that this is the way to go,' says Mr Ho.
More can be done, says Mr G. Jayakrishnan, 36, an assistant director at IE Singapore. 'We need to work on empowering officers of all ranks. This is already happening, but we have to do more - empowering them to mobilise the resources and sometimes let them run the show without interfering too much.'
Second, is the service changing fast enough? As a public entity utilising public funds and under public scrutiny, it has an inherent conservatism that is unlikely to go away.
Says Prof Neo: 'I think they would like to move faster and I think they have to move faster, just to keep up with how the world is changing.'
But the faster one moves, the higher the chances of mistakes, given that it is a big organisation of 110,000, including some 500 in Singapore's overseas missions.
Sometimes, it's about timing, says Prof Neo. He notes, for instance, the Government's 2000 decision to restructure the public hospitals into two clusters in order to introduce competition. 'But costs went up, and people felt that it was unfair,' he says. 'Now the Government is relooking the idea of competition in the health sector.'
The service can move fast when it needs to - as in 2003 when there was the 'clear and present danger' of Sars.
Says Mr Ho: 'When there are priorities like Formula One and the Youth Olympics, the service will move mountains to make available the resources to ensure their successful implementation. But clearly, we cannot do this for everything.'
Therein lies the biggest challenge: In a world expected to show more black swans, will we know when the biggest and blackest of them all is round the corner?
xueying@sph.com.sg
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