SINGAPORE: During United States President Donald Trump’s first address to the Congress since reclaiming the presidency, he gave a big shout-out to Elon Musk, praising the tech mogul for his work at the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"Thank you, Elon, you’re working very hard," said Mr Trump. "We appreciate it. Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it I believe. They just don’t want to admit that," he added, referring to the Democrats.
The president then went on to list out the billions of dollars of wasteful spending that DOGE had reportedly uncovered. On its website, DOGE estimates it has saved US$105 billion from asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.
DOGE - which has been tasked with making deep spending cuts by downsizing the government and eliminating waste and inefficiency - has been likened by some to a “wrecking ball” in its approach to cutting US federal spending and jobs.
Among the various steps taken to slash the federal workforce is a “deferred resignation” offer with the promise of several months’ paid leave for staff who voluntarily resign. Fresh from dismantling USAID, the administration has set its sights on shuttering the Department of Education. Thousands of probationary employees across various departments have also been terminated.
The cuts to the federal workforce have been unprecedented in scale and scope, leading to widespread anxiety and confusion. Just two weeks ago, federal workers were instructed to report their accomplishments from the previous week, with Musk announcing on social media that failure to respond would be taken as resignation.
With Singapore’s next general election due by November, some may wonder if such drastic action could conceivably happen here were there to be a change of government?
Singapore’s Westminster-style governance system envisages a civil service that is insulated from changes in the political leadership. This is the reason that since the colonial era, civil servants who head government ministries are called “permanent secretaries”.
The Singapore Constitution provides for an independent body, the Public Service Commission (PSC), whose role is to appoint, confirm, promote, transfer, dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over public officers. Public officers who feel they have been unfairly dismissed or denied promotion may appeal to the PSC for redress.
Under the Constitution, Singapore’s elected president has custodial powers that can be exercised independently of the Cabinet, but in consultation with the Council of Presidential Advisers. These include the power to veto appointments to the Public, Judicial and Legal Service Commissions, as well as veto the removal of individuals from these appointments.
Other laws, notably the Public Sector (Governance) Act (2018), provide further safeguards against the arbitrary dismissal of public officers.
However, the government of the day has the broad authority to determine the size of the public service and the staffing requirements of public agencies.
While political leaders have the power to downsize the public sector in most jurisdictions, those who face competitive elections must bear in mind that public servants are also voters, and any drop in the quality of public services may not go down well with the electorate.
Even in the US, some commentators believe that the DOGE cuts may come back to bite the Republican party in forthcoming congressional polls.
In countries like Singapore where the public sector is still lean, the more pertinent question is how to avoid a situation where significant public sector cuts become necessary.
Governments with the financial resources must avoid the temptation to grow public sector headcount too quickly even as public demands grow. Efficiency tends to fall as bureaucracies grow in size and complexity, with public officers’ time increasingly taken up coordinating with and reporting to one another.
Excessive public sector growth may eventually lead to a reckoning when fiscal constraints bite and downsizing becomes imperative. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the civil service saw a substantial cut in staffing following the release of the 2012 Civil Service Reform Plan, which aimed to shrink headcount by 23 per cent by 2015.
Besides affecting the quality and continuity of public services, deep cuts to staffing could affect public sector capabilities over the longer term. Among the casualties of the UK downsizing in 2012 was the National School of Government, which ran training for civil service servants. This left a lacuna in civil service learning and development, according to a 2019 report by the UK Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
Expanding the public sector workforce at a more measured pace could forestall such reversals, but this takes considerable discipline and attention to public service efficiency.
Compared with many other advanced economies, Singapore’s public sector is lean with government spending under 20 per cent of gross domestic product. The Singapore Public Service also has a Manpower Management Framework that constrains overall public sector headcount growth in line with resident labour force growth. As of 2023, there were around 152,000 public officers working in ministries and statutory boards, a modest 9 per cent increase from about 139,000 a decade before.
Notwithstanding, keeping manpower growth on a sustainable path is not easy as societal demands and public expectations grow.
Prioritisation of work is therefore critical. The public sector must continually review its work for relevance and be prepared to sunset projects and departments that have outlived their usefulness. This takes continual effort and attention, as it is easier to start new workstreams than to retire existing ones.
Shedding work may be painful for the public officers involved, but it does not mean these officers have to be made redundant. Rather, they should as far as possible be retrained and redeployed to new roles.
Another imperative is raising public sector productivity to enable the delivery of more or better services to the public without adding headcount.
There is considerable scope to save manpower while improving convenience to the public through technology and innovation. Examples include digital transactions and passport-less immigration clearance. Employing AI in notetaking or drones in safety inspections are among the many ways technology has been used to make public sector work easier, safer and smarter.
Public sector transformation is becoming even more important as the economy and society evolve and technology advances. Just as businesses need to transform in response to market demand and technology, the public sector too must adapt to changes in its operating environment. A vital part of this transformation is reskilling public officers for new, technology-enabled job roles.
If Singapore’s Public Service can keep headcount growth in check through work prioritisation and productivity improvement, it can avoid the need for DOGE-like downsizing for many years to come.
Terence Ho is Associate Professor (Practice) at the Institute for Adult Learning, Singapore University of Social Sciences. He is the author of Future-Ready Governance: Perspectives on Singapore and the World (2024).
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"Thank you, Elon, you’re working very hard," said Mr Trump. "We appreciate it. Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it I believe. They just don’t want to admit that," he added, referring to the Democrats.
The president then went on to list out the billions of dollars of wasteful spending that DOGE had reportedly uncovered. On its website, DOGE estimates it has saved US$105 billion from asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.
DOGE - which has been tasked with making deep spending cuts by downsizing the government and eliminating waste and inefficiency - has been likened by some to a “wrecking ball” in its approach to cutting US federal spending and jobs.
Among the various steps taken to slash the federal workforce is a “deferred resignation” offer with the promise of several months’ paid leave for staff who voluntarily resign. Fresh from dismantling USAID, the administration has set its sights on shuttering the Department of Education. Thousands of probationary employees across various departments have also been terminated.
The cuts to the federal workforce have been unprecedented in scale and scope, leading to widespread anxiety and confusion. Just two weeks ago, federal workers were instructed to report their accomplishments from the previous week, with Musk announcing on social media that failure to respond would be taken as resignation.
With Singapore’s next general election due by November, some may wonder if such drastic action could conceivably happen here were there to be a change of government?
Related:
COULD THIS HAPPEN IN SINGAPORE?
Singapore’s Westminster-style governance system envisages a civil service that is insulated from changes in the political leadership. This is the reason that since the colonial era, civil servants who head government ministries are called “permanent secretaries”.
The Singapore Constitution provides for an independent body, the Public Service Commission (PSC), whose role is to appoint, confirm, promote, transfer, dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over public officers. Public officers who feel they have been unfairly dismissed or denied promotion may appeal to the PSC for redress.
Under the Constitution, Singapore’s elected president has custodial powers that can be exercised independently of the Cabinet, but in consultation with the Council of Presidential Advisers. These include the power to veto appointments to the Public, Judicial and Legal Service Commissions, as well as veto the removal of individuals from these appointments.
Other laws, notably the Public Sector (Governance) Act (2018), provide further safeguards against the arbitrary dismissal of public officers.
However, the government of the day has the broad authority to determine the size of the public service and the staffing requirements of public agencies.
While political leaders have the power to downsize the public sector in most jurisdictions, those who face competitive elections must bear in mind that public servants are also voters, and any drop in the quality of public services may not go down well with the electorate.
Even in the US, some commentators believe that the DOGE cuts may come back to bite the Republican party in forthcoming congressional polls.
Related:
THE NEED TO KEEP PUBLIC SECTOR GROWTH SUSTAINABLE
In countries like Singapore where the public sector is still lean, the more pertinent question is how to avoid a situation where significant public sector cuts become necessary.
Governments with the financial resources must avoid the temptation to grow public sector headcount too quickly even as public demands grow. Efficiency tends to fall as bureaucracies grow in size and complexity, with public officers’ time increasingly taken up coordinating with and reporting to one another.
Excessive public sector growth may eventually lead to a reckoning when fiscal constraints bite and downsizing becomes imperative. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the civil service saw a substantial cut in staffing following the release of the 2012 Civil Service Reform Plan, which aimed to shrink headcount by 23 per cent by 2015.
Besides affecting the quality and continuity of public services, deep cuts to staffing could affect public sector capabilities over the longer term. Among the casualties of the UK downsizing in 2012 was the National School of Government, which ran training for civil service servants. This left a lacuna in civil service learning and development, according to a 2019 report by the UK Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
Expanding the public sector workforce at a more measured pace could forestall such reversals, but this takes considerable discipline and attention to public service efficiency.
Compared with many other advanced economies, Singapore’s public sector is lean with government spending under 20 per cent of gross domestic product. The Singapore Public Service also has a Manpower Management Framework that constrains overall public sector headcount growth in line with resident labour force growth. As of 2023, there were around 152,000 public officers working in ministries and statutory boards, a modest 9 per cent increase from about 139,000 a decade before.
Related:
DOMESTIC CONSIDERATIONS
Notwithstanding, keeping manpower growth on a sustainable path is not easy as societal demands and public expectations grow.
Prioritisation of work is therefore critical. The public sector must continually review its work for relevance and be prepared to sunset projects and departments that have outlived their usefulness. This takes continual effort and attention, as it is easier to start new workstreams than to retire existing ones.
Shedding work may be painful for the public officers involved, but it does not mean these officers have to be made redundant. Rather, they should as far as possible be retrained and redeployed to new roles.
Another imperative is raising public sector productivity to enable the delivery of more or better services to the public without adding headcount.
There is considerable scope to save manpower while improving convenience to the public through technology and innovation. Examples include digital transactions and passport-less immigration clearance. Employing AI in notetaking or drones in safety inspections are among the many ways technology has been used to make public sector work easier, safer and smarter.
Public sector transformation is becoming even more important as the economy and society evolve and technology advances. Just as businesses need to transform in response to market demand and technology, the public sector too must adapt to changes in its operating environment. A vital part of this transformation is reskilling public officers for new, technology-enabled job roles.
If Singapore’s Public Service can keep headcount growth in check through work prioritisation and productivity improvement, it can avoid the need for DOGE-like downsizing for many years to come.
Terence Ho is Associate Professor (Practice) at the Institute for Adult Learning, Singapore University of Social Sciences. He is the author of Future-Ready Governance: Perspectives on Singapore and the World (2024).
Related:
Continue reading...