Speech by SMS Sim Ann at the Municipal Services Award 2021
Nov 17, 2021
Good afternoon to all of our award winners, and a very big hello to everyone!
Challenges due to COVID-19
It is really good to be able to meet everyone virtually. I hope everyone is keeping well in these challenging times. Every year, we gather to celebrate and recognise the efforts of outstanding individuals, teams and community partners who have gone the extra mile to address municipal issues and improve our residents’ shared living environment.
While we are still not able to meet face-to-face because of COVID-19, I am glad that we are all able to be present on Zoom. Under such circumstances, the achievements of our winners this year are particularly noteworthy as the difficulties brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have made their work even more challenging.
COVID-19 has profoundly changed our way of life. We now spend longer hours in our homes and are more aware of the state of our living environment. While we all want to live in a well-maintained neighbourhood and be on friendly terms with our neighbours, there are challenges that have emerged during the pandemic. Patience and consideration towards our neighbours have been put to the test with more of us working from home.
Manpower shortages due to COVID-19 restrictions over the past year have also meant that it was more challenging for agencies and officers like yourselves to maintain the same service delivery as before. In these trying times, I would like to say a very big “thank you” to everyone who has been helping to keep Singaporeans safe and ensuring that our services run smoothly!
Purpose of Municipal Services Award
At today’s Municipal Services Awards, we honour two groups of people. The first group are the officers from our partner agencies and Town Councils who have exemplified the spirit of collaboration in service, and who have put our residents first in all they do. The second group are the volunteers and community partners who have stepped up to help their fellow residents to improve their living environment. Those of you here today represent the most outstanding teams and individuals out of the 95 commendable nominations we received this year.
Recognising Officers: Individual and Team Awards
The individual awards are given to officers who go the extra mile for residents. Ms Helen Woo is one such individual. Helen is a senior staff at Tampines Town Council and was originally trained to manage the Integrated Estates Management System (IEMS). As the responsibilities of the Town Council evolved, the demands on Helen’s role also grew. She stepped up and took it upon herself to learn new skills over time, such as manning the public hotline, and helping residents resolve municipal issues within the estates. Helen, your positive attitude to readily take on new challenges and learning and adapting, to serve residents better, is one that we can all learn from.
Resolving municipal issues often also requires officers to work across agencies and Town Councils. The team category of awards thus recognises groups of officers who have exemplified the spirit of collaboration in delivering municipal services on the ground. One excellent example is the strong inter-agency collaboration among NParks, NEA, Bishan-Toa Payoh, Jalan Besar, Pasir Ris-Punggol and Tanjong Pagar Town Councils. This collaboration is for a pilot project to control the pigeon population at precincts under the four Town Councils. Their efforts included on-ground surveillance, public education, collaborating with hawker centres, and modifying pigeon habitats. These efforts paid off when pigeon-related feedback decreased by 25% in the testbed areas. I look forward to the team’s sharing about their experience later.
Recognising Community Efforts: Community Awards
We see such a collaborative spirit and approach to municipal issues within the community as well. While agencies work together to deliver services to residents, we would also like to pay tribute to our community partners and volunteers who play a critical role in making our neighbourhoods even better. One such community award recipient this year is the team from Nee Soon East Youth Network and Yishun Palm Springs RC. This team of residents and volunteers has been dedicated to helping seniors in their neighbourhood, who may have mobility issues, to declutter hoarding in their homes. We will be hearing more from this team later, to find out what motivates them.
With municipal issues becoming more complex, community partners and volunteers play an ever-increasing role. We will thus be introducing two changes to the Municipal Services Awards from 2022, to better recognise ground-up efforts. First, we will now accept nominations for the community category directly from community groups, instead of only through partner agencies or Town Councils. We hope this will expand the pool of nominations received as we know there are many good initiatives out there led by residents who may not involve agencies or Town Councils. Second, we will be introducing a new Love Our ‘Hood Award to recognise constituencies’ community partners and volunteers who have contributed towards improving the living environment within their constituency.
For example, a cluster of partners consisting of the grassroots leaders, a school and local businesses within the same constituency can be nominated for a project or an ongoing effort. An independent panel, comprising six of our community partners from the Public Hygiene Council, Singapore Kindness Movement, Design Business Chamber Singapore, and MSO’s OneService Kakis network, has been formed to assess these nominations. I look forward to more nominations for the community category and the new Love Our ‘Hood Award next year!
How MSO enables officers and the community to better serve the community
Congratulations to all our award recipients today, and thank you to all our officers, community partners and volunteers who have dedicated time and effort towards addressing municipal issues and improving our shared living environment.
Beyond the 20 winners at the Municipal Services Awards, countless other officers have also worked tirelessly in the background to deliver better services to residents. To help officers do better, MSO has been working with agencies on capability development programmes. This includes the Municipal Services Delivery Programme, which we co-organised with the Civil Service College, for officers who are new to municipal work. Launched in March this year, this foundational milestone programme equips officers with case management skills, as part of pursuing service excellence, with an emphasis on inculcating the OneService mindset among agencies.
We will also continue to identify opportunities to make it easier for the community to help one another. For example, in September, we launched a new feature called Help Neighbour on our OneService App. Residents can use it to refer persons in need to social service agencies, so that they can receive assistance. It is this spirit of looking out for one another that we want to continue to encourage and inculcate in our community.
Conclusion
Once again, I would like to thank all of you for working with various stakeholders in delivering citizen-centric municipal services. We will continue in our efforts to enable all of you to serve the community better, and to recognise all your hard work. Together, let’s work towards our vision of an Engaged Community, for a Better Living Environment, and keep our OneService flag flying high! Thank you, everyone.