Committee of Supply – Head I (Ministry of Social and Family Development)

Head I (cont) –

Resumption of Debate on Question [9 March 2022],

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head I of the Estimates be reduced by $100." – [Mr Seah Kian Peng].

Question again proposed.

The Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M): Chairperson, I thank Members for their thoughtful suggestions. We share the same vision of a more caring, inclusive and resilient Singapore.

We are now into the third year of our fight against COVID-19. It has been a test – not only for our healthcare systems, but also our social structures and support systems. Hence, first and foremost, I thought to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to all our social workers, social service professionals and volunteers. Throughout the pandemic, many of you stepped up – went the extra mile to care for and support Singaporeans in need, providing a critical line of social support in the community. We are deeply grateful.

At MSF, we set up the National Care Hotline and rolled out key support schemes to protect individuals against income shocks and to meet their immediate needs, such as the Temporary Relief Fund (TRF) and COVID-19 Support Grant (CSG), where we disbursed a total of $440 million in assistance, supporting around 470,000 individuals.

Subsequently, under the COVID-19 Recovery Grant (CRG), we have disbursed around another $60 million so far; so, in total, $500 million. This has supported around 27,500 individuals. At the same time, we also created over 5,000 jobs and skills opportunities in the social and early childhood sectors in the past year, including for persons with disabilities.

Singaporeans from all walks of life, joined hands and we rose against the biggest crisis of our generation. We saw families and individuals supporting one another. Neighbours extending a helping hand. Corporates and community organisations stepping up, joining hands with the Government. This spirit of working together has helped and enabled us to overcome crisis after crisis – from our Independence till today.

Several Members have asked about the Government's plans to uplift the low-income in Singapore – Mr Leon Perera, Mr Seah Kian Peng and Ms Ng Ling Ling.

It begins with Singapore's Social Compact, which Minister Lawrence Wong explained in the Budget speech. Our Social Compact is enabling. The Government creates conditions for growth and an enabling environment that provides affordable and quality education, healthcare and housing for all Singaporeans.

Individuals work hard, doing the best for themselves and their families and this brings us dignity. Family members support one another through the ups and downs in life – our first line of support. Together, with the support of a caring community, the Government provides an extra hand to uplift Singaporeans in need – the low-income, the vulnerable and persons with disabilities; the citizens that MSF cares for, among others.

Social mobility becomes possible even if inequality is unavoidable. It is Singapore's vaccination against permanent entrenchment. But we must remember that in Singapore's early days, housing, education and healthcare were nowhere near what we have today, not in terms of accessibility and much less in terms of quality.

As a young nation, Singapore did not have much. But our pioneer leaders had the wisdom to prioritise education, housing and healthcare as the foundations of our Social Compact, alongside the CPF system for all Singaporeans – with discipline, decade after decade. Equally important, the Government successfully attracted investments into Singapore, creating job opportunities. Our forefathers worked hard because they took pride in being able to provide for their families in those hard times.

Family members, in turn, helped one another, because social assistance was very basic and reserved for the neediest. Neighbours and friends often chipped in. Just like the present crisis, everyone stepped up. Individuals, families, communities and the Government, all working together, hand in hand.

Our Social Compact remains relevant, but has evolved over the years.

By the early 1990s, we introduced schemes like Edusave and MediFund that benefit many Singaporeans today. HDB housing grants were also expanded. Today, eligible first-time homebuyers can receive grants of up to $80,000 for new flats or up to $160,000 for resale flats – making public housing affordable.

We invested heavily in our preschools, schools and higher education system to give every Singaporean child the opportunities to succeed. This has proven to be one of the biggest enablers of our society. Through education, we enable Singaporeans to be self-reliant, as they gain skills and employment. And this, in turn, supports the building of assets, like housing and savings through the CPF, enabling them to care and provide for their families with dignity and, eventually, in retirement.

Today, a Singaporean child can receive over $180,000 of education subsidies from the preschool years till the age of 16.

Our tax and benefits system remains progressive. Low- and middle-income households continue to receive more benefits relative to taxes paid.

We have come far. Today, around nine in 10 own their own homes. Even among the low-income, home ownership remains high. Our public healthcare system provides affordable, quality medical treatment for every citizen and is well-recognised internationally.

On average, the Government spends over $230,000 in healthcare subsidies for each Singaporean over their lifetime. An educated and trainable workforce has continued attracting investments. Wages have grown, even after accounting for inflation, while many other advanced economies struggle with wage stagnation. Intergenerational mobility in Singapore is higher than that in North America and Europe, including for younger cohorts born from 1985 to 1989.

Major shifts in policy have always been accompanied by efforts to enhance social assistance. Already, more is being done to protect Singaporeans against the rapid disruptions across economies. We must not allow inequality to be entrenched, as seen in many advanced economies.

Going forward, addressing social needs will become even more complex. We did this over a decade ago when globalisation struck the world full-blown. Workfare and ComCare were rolled out and new features of our social security system, like Silver Support and MediShield Life, were introduced. Recently, we announced the expansion of the Progressive Wage Model to uplift more low-wage workers.

ComCare is a key component of our social safety nets. ComCare Short-to-Medium-Term Assistance, or SMTA, enables families to tide over temporary periods of difficulty. When clients improve their circumstances, for example, after landing a new, better paying job, Social Services Offices (SSOs) can exercise flexibility to provide extended assistance. This gives them time to stabilise their finances and strengthens the incentive to gain self-reliance. Because ultimately, we want them to bounce back together and stronger.

Hence, in Budget 2022, to be even more enabling, we have also expanded training subsidies for ComCare recipients, making it easier for them to reskill and access good job opportunities. For example, they may take up a Digital Marketing course to move into in-demand job roles, via the new SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme announced at MOE's Committee of Supply (COS).

Before subsidies, they would have to pay $10,000. After subsidies, they pay less than $1,000, which can be further offset to as little as to no cost, using their SkillsFuture Credit. Eventually, with employment, they can build their assets through housing and CPF.

We also know some in our society require permanent support. For them, we provide ComCare Long-Term Assistance. Together with philanthropy, the generosity of the public and corporates, we have made it possible to care for them as a collective. This exemplifies our shared ethos of a caring society.

To ensure its adequacy, we review the ComCare coverage and quantum every two to three years. When doing so, we reference data on households' daily living expenses and seek input from experts and community stakeholders.

While we strengthen our support at the policy level, we must also ensure that Singaporeans in need can access them.

Many low-income families are often time-strapped, having to juggle multiple needs and demands. We do not want this to become a barrier for them to seek assistance. This is why we started a major effort to bring assistance closer to families in a more comprehensive, convenient and coordinated manner.

From 2013 to 2015, we set up an islandwide network of 24 Social Service Offices, or SSOs. We have also been streamlining processes and facilitating data-sharing. For example, we will put together a schemes bundle to strengthen support for ComCare families with school-going children. Once their ComCare applications are approved, they will not need to submit separate applications to access other support schemes, like MOE Financial Assistance, covered by the bundle.

Through the enhanced SupportGoWhere portal, clients can also apply for ComCare SMTA online, instead of visiting the SSOs in person. Finally, we have made a fundamental shift in our paradigm. Instead of waiting for clients to turn up at our offices, we want to turn up at their doors, so that we can address issues upstream. Hence, we have started scaling up Community Link (ComLink) nationwide.

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Under ComLink, families with children living in public rental housing will be supported by a team of befrienders. They will be the single touchpoint for these families, journeying with them, nudging them towards longer-term goals. Minister Desmond Lee and Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua will share more.

Even through the early days of ComLink and working together with the community, we have enabled families to uplift themselves and improve their circumstances. Singaporeans like Mr Azman and his family are one example.

Mr Azman and his family had been working as delivery personnel to support their two children. They lived in a 1-room rental flat and had incurred various arrears. With the help of ComLink befrienders and their SSO coordinator, they were encouraged to take small, actionable steps to improve their circumstances. They were also supported with ComCare assistance which enabled them to cope with their daily expenses and arrears, while they re-enrolled their son in student care and moved into a larger 2-room flat. The befrienders and SSO also referred the family to various programmes, enabling them to achieve financial independence in the long term. Today, Mr Azman no longer requires ComCare assistance and his family is on the path towards home ownership.

We will continue to strengthen the ecosystem of support so that more Singaporeans like Mr Azman and his family can be uplifted. Because, ultimately, our goal is to enable all Singaporeans to flourish – whatever their race, religion, differently abled or not.

This brings me to my next point on the role of families as a core pillar of our Social Compact.

Chairperson, strong families continue to be the bedrock of our society – a key pillar of strength and our first line of support, complemented by the community and enabled by the Government.

The love and care that family members devote to one another are irreplaceable. In the face of adversity, our families protect and guide us back onto the right path, like a shining beacon, like a compass, always pointing towards the true north. Values that we treasure as a society – like love, care and concern, commitment and respect – are cultivated and transmitted through the family.

Strong families also nurture resilient individuals who do well for themselves and their families and who, eventually, we hope, give back to the community. This is a virtuous cycle that we want to perpetuate and preserve. Our collective efforts have enabled many Singaporeans to form and raise strong families. Family remains a core part of Singapore's identity and values.

Findings from MSF's latest "Social Attitudes of Singaporeans" survey show that Singaporean families continue to be close-knit. The strength of our families was also demonstrated through the pandemic. Families found new ways to support one another, making extra effort to show their love and concern.

At the same time, we recognise the pandemic's uneven effects on different families. Those who were more vulnerable felt the strain more acutely. There were also instances of domestic violence and greater mental health concerns, exacerbated by the stressors brought upon by the pandemic.

Furthermore, as Mr Seah Kian Peng highlighted, longer-term challenges lie ahead even as we continue grappling with COVID-19. Although families have remained strong, the geopolitical uncertainty and changing nature of work are but some examples of new stressors placing a strain on more families. Marriage rates have declined over the past twenty years and couples are having fewer children. We are also seeing a higher proportion of divorces among more recent marriage cohorts.

We must preserve our family core. The Government will journey alongside and support all families in Singapore.

First, we will fortify the foundations of all families. Second, we will strengthen support for families with additional needs.

Members, including Mr Murali Pillai and Ms Ng Ling Ling, have underscored the importance of strengthening our family core upstream. I cannot agree more.

We must start early by fortifying the foundations of all families. This begins as early as when a couple commits to getting married. We must enable couples to build their marriage on a sound foundation with shared values, common understanding and trust.

Marriage is a huge commitment – one of the biggest decisions that most of us will ever make in our lives. When two people become joined as one, it can be a big transition. There are times when differences arise and may not be resolved easily. The couple may then benefit from seeking counsel from a trusted person, who has journeyed with them from the start.

This is why we are piloting the Journey with You (JOY) initiative. We will partner selected solemnisers to mentor newlywed couples in their first year of marriage. This complements the suite of marriage preparation and enrichment programmes that help couples prepare for and strengthen their marriages. We have found early success in a similar programme for the Muslim community called Bersamamu, led by Minister of State Faishal Ibrahim, then in MSF.

With the foundations of a strong marriage, couples will be more confident and ready for parenthood. We will also continue supporting couples on their parenting journey, by making Singapore a great place for raising families. We will enhance the quality, accessibility and affordability of our preschools. At the community level, MSF will support the Families for Life movement. We will integrate our ecosystem of support for families with children, especially across the social-health domains, as I shared at MOH's COS yesterday.

As Dr Tan Yia Swam mentioned, we must also bolster support for our extended families – they provide an additional layer of comfort. We recognise that many extended families were unable to gather as often during the pandemic. The eventual easing of safe management measures (SMMs) and resumption of in-person activities would allow for extended families to gather, while staying safe.

Intergenerational ties must remain strong. Let us show appreciation for our grandparents, grandaunts and granduncles. We invite Singaporeans to do so, by joining Families for Life's annual "Celebrating Our Grands" initiative.

We also recognise that every family's journey is unique. Some face greater challenges and pressures, often beyond their control. We will do more to enable these families.

Earlier, I spoke about our comprehensive range of support for low-income families. In addition to those, we have also expanded other national initiatives – like KidSTART and UPLIFT; and enhanced the Fresh Start Scheme. Coordinated via ComLink, they support low-income families across multiple domains; enabling the Government to adopt a family-centric approach, rather than being agency-driven.

Next, for families showing early signs of stress, the Strengthening Families Programme @ Family Service Centre, or we shorten it to call it FAM@FSC, brings together marriage and divorce support programmes and family counselling to support them in a more integrated and accessible manner. We will scale up to 10 FAM@FSC centres by the end of the year.

For families with more complex needs, we provide specialised support. We will press on with our efforts to tackle family violence. The Government has accepted the 16 recommendations from the Taskforce on Family Violence. They will be implemented over the next few years.

I thank Mr Faisal Manap for his suggestion to strengthen social safeguards for gambling at Singapore Pools outlets. We will continue reviewing social safeguards to ensure they stay relevant whilst balancing the need to divert gamblers from illegal operators which pose significant law and order, and social concerns. We will also continue working with the National Council on Problem Gambling to promote public awareness of the harms of excessive gambling.

Families with members who are persons with disabilities may also face unique challenges. We have ramped up support for them over the years through our Enabling Masterplans. Today, we have a more inclusive education system for students with special needs, enhanced employment support for persons with disabilities and a growing ecosystem of support for caregivers. Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua will share more on how the Enabling Masterplan 2030 will achieve an even more inclusive Singapore.

We cannot build an inclusive and caring society without everyone getting involved. We especially want to encourage Singaporeans who have done well to give back to society. I was glad to know that community donations have increased over the past decade, from about $1 billion in 2011 to over $1.5 billion in 2019, coupled with a rise in volunteerism.

I agree with Ms Denise Phua that we can help volunteers play a more active role in uplifting those with less. Hence, we launched the MSFCare Network in January, bringing together over 3,000 volunteers and partners across almost 80 volunteering opportunities under a single umbrella Network.

In fact, there are many families who are leading by example. Some foster children, providing a nurturing environment for them to flourish. Others adopt children in-need, giving them love and stable homes.

Mr Seah Kian Peng asked about the review of the Adoption of Children Act.

MSF has consulted the public and stakeholders. We studied best practices around the world and intend to adapt some of them for Singapore, such as mandating pre-adoption assessments and criminalising undesirable practices. We plan to introduce the Adoption of Children Bill this year.

We hope more families will be encouraged to step forward to achieve our shared vision of a more caring, just and equal society.

Chairperson, in our work at MSF, beyond families, we join hands with many organisations in the social service sector whichnshare our vision of building a resilient society, underpinned by strong families.

During my engagements with social service professionals, a common theme that emerged was the need to place the family at the centre of our interventions, to engage collaboratively with the families so that they feel involved and empowered to turn their lives around. I would like to share an example of the inspiring work of Big Love Child Protection Specialist Centre.

Last year, Big Love worked with a family, where the father had repeatedly hit his children and spouse. After ensuring the children's safety, the centre worked with both parents to help them understand how their actions have negatively impacted their children. They also taught them to care for their children safely and responsibly. The centre also built a network of community support around the family, joining hands with NUH, Rotary Family Service Centre and Children's Wishing Well charity.

Through a family-centric, collaborative approach, Big Love was able to help the family address their issues and heal. There has been no recurrence of harm since. The father also spends more time with his children now. Big Love's success is a testament to the critical role that our partners play on the ground in our endeavour to build strong families.

I agree with Mr Seah Kian Peng that we must grow the capabilities of our many Social Service Agencies (SSAs), like Big Love, to support them in the good work that they do. We want to enable them to continue delivering quality, innovative and sustainable services to build strong families and meet growing needs.

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From April onwards, SSAs will be able to tap on the Community Capability Trust to fund their capability- and capacity-building efforts, for instance, in digitalisation or research and evaluation.

We have also seen corporates stepping up to support SSAs during the pandemic. For example, Amazon Connect worked with WE CARE Community Services to remote-enable their call centres.

NCSS and stakeholders from the people, private and public sectors are also working to refresh the Social Service Sector Strategic Thrusts, or 4ST. The refreshed roadmap will set out the sector's commitment to building more future-directed services and capabilities over the next five years. It will also advocate for more strategic partnerships between corporates, SSAs and other community partners. More details will be released later this year.

These sector-wide developments will also benefit our social workers, who are at the heart of our social service sector and our Family Service Centres, or FSCs.

Mr Leon Perera and Mr Louis Ng asked about support for our social workers and FSCs. FSCs are resourced based on the number and complexity of active cases. FSCs can hire more social workers if caseloads increase and allocate cases based on the workers' experience and complexity of cases. FSCs can tap on their accumulated programme reserves to hire additional manpower. In FY2020, 68% of FSCs had an average of at least 1.5 years of programme reserves.

MSF works closely with FSC leadership to monitor the caseloads and hiring, and adopt supervision practices that support the welfare of our social workers. In this manner, MSF balances between being prescriptive and allowing FSCs flexibility and autonomy to respond to needs, while looking after our social workers' interest.

Finally, our commitment to support families must also involve the community. Together with the Government and families, they care for those in need and reinforce the transmission of social values that we treasure, from one generation to the next. Last year, we celebrated the contributions of Singapore Women to our families and our society.

Building on this momentum, I am pleased to announce that we will dedicate 2022 as the Year of Celebrating SG Families, or YCF. YCF will rally Singaporeans to celebrate the important role that families play in our lives, encouraging families to spend time together and galvanise whole-of-society support for families.

This movement will be led by Families for Life, with the support of the Government as well as our community and commercial partners. YCF will comprise three components. First, MSF will engage the public and stakeholders via the Alliance for Action to Strengthen Marriages and Family Relationships and their partners, to explore how we can jointly act to strengthen families. The feedback will be consolidated into a Celebrating SG Families Plan, which will set out our society's commitment and support for families. We will unveil the Plan at the CIFA Regional Symposium & MSF Asian Family Conference 2022, in November.

Second, families can look forward to celebratory events, programmes and useful family resources, with three themes – Celebrating Families; Championing Family-Friendly Workplaces and Culture; and Caring for Families.

Finally, we will launch legacy projects that will last beyond YCF, symbolising the importance that we place on families in our society. We will start with the FamilyTrees planting initiative this Saturday. Parents can commemorate the birth of their baby by planting a tree – a reminder of the enduring role that families play in our lives. Families can also look forward to a National Family Week during the June holidays. Fun-filled events, promotions and family life education programmes will be lined up, including a family carnival; hopefully, with very little SMMs. YCF will also see the launch of a new family zone at Gardens by the Bay this July. We will share more in the coming months. Chairman, in Malay please.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mdm Chairman, families are the bedrock of our society. During difficult and challenging times such as during this pandemic, it is our families that we turn to for support and strength.

I am thankful that family and family values continue to be treasured by Singaporeans, including the Malay/Muslim community.

However, families will inevitably, face stressors along the way. In this regard, the Government has worked with the community to strengthen the family institution.

Three years ago, we started the Bersamamu Programme, for Muslim solemnisers, the Kadi and Naib Kadi, to journey alongside Muslim soon-to-wed couples and newlyweds during their first two years of marriage. Today, more than 14,500 couples have benefited from this programme.

We will continue to strengthen support to all families, especially those who need additional assistance. We will scale up KidSTART nationwide progressively and enhance support for families with children living in public rental housing through Community Link, or ComLink.

It is heartening to see families which have done well coming forward to contribute. For example, many Malay/Muslim families have become foster parents to children in need. Others have adopted these children. Seeing them open their hearts, their families and their homes readily to children in need is, indeed, heartwarming and admirable.

To rally Singaporeans in celebrating the important role that families play in our lives, I am pleased to announce that MSF will dedicate 2022 as the "Year of Celebrating SG Families" (YCF). YCF will involve Government agencies, corporates and community partners, including the M³ agencies – namely MUIS, MENDAKI AND MESRA – as well as individuals and M³@Towns. There will be a range of celebratory events, programmes and useful family resources to look forward to. We will share more details soon.

Strong and stable families shape individuals with resilience to strive and succeed. This is key to propelling the Malay/Muslim community forward. I will elaborate more on the support for the Malay/Muslim community in my MCCY speech.

Mdm Chairman, the coming month of Ramadan represents the best opportunity for the Malay/Muslim community to continue strengthening our familial and community ties, while adhering to SMMs. Let us continue to support one another, especially those in need. Together, I am confident that we can build the best future for ourselves and our families.

(In English): Singaporeans have weathered many trials together since Independence. We will be tested with many more trials to come, but our spirit of working together will keep us strong, no matter the challenges ahead.

In our work at MSF, we will continue supporting and uplifting families at every stage of their lives. When families are strong, our nation, too, will be able to chart our way forward on a firm foundation for generations to come. [Applause.]

The Chairman: Minister Desmond Lee.

The Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration (Mr Desmond Lee): Mdm Chairman, Minister Masagos Zulkifli spoke about families as an important anchor of our society.

We want all our families and every Singaporean to succeed. Over the years, we have put in place many programmes and schemes to enable Singaporeans to do well in areas, – such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, skills, social support and more, and provided additional help to those who have less.

But some families face an array of challenges that may prevent them from seizing the opportunities in front of them – debt and financial difficulties, health problems, job instability, children struggling in school, family conflict, mindset barriers, housing insecurity, mental health issues and more. These are often complex, deep-seated and interlocking, unlike the kinds of difficulties that most families face from time to time, and they cannot be resolved by one Government agency, community partner, one social worker or on its own.

Ms Ng Ling Ling asked how MSF will better support such families and Mr Leon Perera also made a few suggestions.

Policies, programmes and partnerships are important, but paradigms and processes are crucial, too. The way that our ecosystem works together and integrates together to deliver social services matters.

As Minister Masagos Zulkifli said, we are making a fundamental shift in our paradigm. We want to be proactive in our approach, put the family at the centre, tap on their strengths and that of the community around them, organise our collective resources around them and try to go as far upstream as we can, so that we provide holistic support that addresses their various needs. This is a deep shift in how we deliver social services, from a programme- or agency-centric approach, towards a family-centred one.

The transformation will take time and we have already started work a few years ago; improving inter-agency processes and officers' capabilities, building systems and enabling platforms and, importantly, strengthening and building relationships of trust within local networks on the ground to provide holistic support to families in need.

We call this our "3C"s approach, which we have shared in Parliament over the last few years – providing Comprehensive, Convenient and Coordinated support. Comprehensive – in addressing presenting issues, as well as deeper root causes; Convenient support – so that families can focus their energies on improving their lives; and Coordinated – across different agencies and partners.

Through this approach, we seek to empower the family to secure a brighter future – by, first, stabilising their circumstances, then enabling them to grow in self-reliance by building up skills and resources and, ultimately, to achieve social mobility.

Let me illustrate how we are translating this paradigm shift into action, using a "fly-through" of a hypothetical ComCare client – let us call her Mrs Tan.

Mrs Tan is a working mother with school-going children and she recently lost her job. Her first step might be to visit Workforce Singapore (WSG), to find work, amongst other organisations. But WSG officers do not just help Mrs Tan look for a job or upskilling opportunities. They also find out about her situation. And when they realise that she is in financial hardship, they will proactively link her up with a Social Service Office (SSO). That is what we are training our frontline officers to do – to identify the various needs of a client, beyond their presenting issues and connect them with the relevant support. Going forward, we will extend this training to our community partners and volunteers, so that families can get comprehensive support as soon as possible.

WSG can link Mrs Tan up with an SSO using Case Connect, our new online platform which we launched last year. Through Case Connect, agencies can refer cases to one another, share case updates, discuss next steps and bring in more partners if required. This makes it a lot easier for our colleagues to coordinate with one another and keep track of all case updates to have greater impact.

The SSO then assesses Mrs Tan for ComCare assistance. To do this, they can use another digital system – One Client View, or OneCV, which was also launched last year. OneCV allows our frontline colleagues to pull the client's relevant information, with the client's consent, from other agencies seamlessly.

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For instance, Mrs Tan does not have to submit her CPF statements or her children's birth certificates for her ComCare application. Instead, she just provides her consent for the SSO to draw the relevant data from Government agencies backend. We will continue to enhance Case Connect and OneCV and extend them to more organisations progressively.

The SSO assesses that Mrs Tan qualifies for ComCare. But she may need other assistance, too, for example, support with school fees for her children, from MOE. So, we have set up what we call Streamlined Assessment Protocols, or SAPs. These allow ComCare families to easily access different forms of support based on just one means-testing assessment, rather than being assessed separately for each scheme. We have done this across six agencies so far, covering schemes on digital access, rental housing, healthcare, education and childcare. For Mrs Tan, once the SSO officers assess that she qualifies for ComCare, they will also assess whether her children are eligible for Student Care Fee Assistance (SCFA) and MOE financial assistance (FAS).

OneCV and SAPs will reduce the number of times that clients have to be interviewed and means-tested. They also reduce the administrative load for our frontline colleagues. However, in some cases, SAPs still require families to submit separate applications for different schemes, which can be administratively cumbersome.

Ms Joan Pereira and Mr Leon Perera will be glad to know that we will further streamline this process, so that eligible ComCare families automatically receive help from the relevant schemes, doing away with additional applications for each scheme. Since 2018, eligible ComCare clients automatically receive MediFund assistance and bursaries for full-time Polytechnic and ITE students. We will expand on this effort, to build a "schemes bundle" to support families with school-going children. By the end of the second quarter of this year, ComCare clients like Mrs Tan, whose children are in Government or Government-aided schools, will automatically receive MOE Financial Assistance, without needing to apply at their children's schools.

Mrs Tan's Primary school-age children are enrolled at an MSF-registered Student Care Centre (SCC). So, they will also automatically qualify for maximum SCFA subsidies for 12 months. This applies to children with special needs who attend special SCCs, too. This schemes bundle covers Mrs Tan's children from Primary school to pre-tertiary studies, including after-school care. She need not worry about submitting and tracking multiple applications.

We will progressively bundle together more schemes that cover other domains. For instance, by the end of 2022, eligible ComCare clients will be automatically referred for the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) for medical and dental subsidies at participating clinics. We expect 30,000 ComCare families to benefit from the schemes bundle that we will progressively roll out. Mrs Tan's example illustrates how we are organising support around the needs of families, rather than have them come around our agencies or programmes.

We will continue to make our processes even more convenient for families by digitalising our social services, while ensuring that in-person support remains available for those who prefer face-to-face interactions. Today, we have the SupportGoWhere portal, which consolidates information across Government schemes into one website for easy reference. But users still need to approach the various agencies separately to apply for the schemes. So, we will enhance the SupportGoWhere portal so that users can also check their eligibility for different schemes, apply for assistance directly and receive prompt updates on their application on a single platform.

By the second quarter of 2022, families can apply for ComCare Short-to-Medium-Term Assistance (SMTA) and submit relevant documents through the portal directly instead of having to apply in-person at an SSO. They will then receive a phone or video call from SSO officers to understand their situation and assess their application. For those who prefer to speak to an SSO officer in person, they can still visit the SSO. We will progressively support more schemes application on this portal. These improvements will reduce the burden on families-in-need, allowing them to better focus on longer-term goals.

These are the ways that we are transforming our delivery of social services, to provide more comprehensive, convenient and coordinated support. This approach is exemplified by our flagship initiative, which we launched in 2019 – Community Link, or ComLink for short – which several Members spoke about.

ComLink supports families with children living in public rental housing to achieve three long-term outcomes that we mentioned earlier – stability in meeting basic needs; self-reliance where they can support themselves; and finally, social mobility, so that they can improve their circumstances.

ComLink embodies the proactive family-centric approach that we are moving towards. We proactively reach out to families to understand their needs and aspirations. We draw relevant data across agencies, with the families' consent, to get a 360-degree view of their situation as best as possible. We work with the family and across agencies to develop goals and a dynamic common action plan. And we then bring in customised programmes and services tailored to their needs, with the support of community partners, donors, corporates and volunteers.

Throughout this process, the family is working with us on their action plans and taking greater charge of their future.

We announced during last year's COS that we will scale up ComLink nationwide to support over 14,000 families over the next few years. Mr Faisal Manap asked how we can build strong relationships with these families. Let me share some of the new ideas that we are trying out and what we have learnt so far. My colleague, Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua, will then elaborate on our progress in scaling up ComLink.

As I have explained, ComLink goes beyond episodic transactions with families, towards building longer-term relationships with them, partnering them, empowering them to grow. This is a much more impactful but intensive approach, involving many agencies and partners. As we scale up ComLink, we expect to run up against significant fiscal and manpower constraints.

To find ways to better manage our resources while ensuring greater impact, we have been running learning pilots with some of our ComLink families since last year. We are streamlining our front-end interactions with the families. Instead of burdening families with the need to interact with many different agencies and their frontline officers, we assign a pair of befrienders to each family to serve as a constant touchpoint. These befrienders journey with the family, celebrating their achievements and encouraging them through setbacks. Over time, they build rapport and trust, allowing them to better understand the family's unique circumstances and encourage the family towards their goals. The befrienders share their understanding of the families with the SSO. SSO officers then serve as overall coordinator, pulling in other agencies to support the family where necessary and aligning agencies' efforts and their schemes and programmes around the family's common plan.

We have seen good results from our befriender pilot. With befrienders, we can consolidate the manpower needed for public outreach across different agencies and programmes. But more importantly, families and befrienders have the opportunity to develop trust and deeper relationships and the families are often more motivated to follow through on their plans. We will, therefore, scale up the pilot this year to support more ComLink families.

Given how closely befrienders work with ComLink families, we agree with Mr Don Wee that befrienders must be trustworthy and adequately trained. Many of these befrienders are referred to us by community partners. And MSF interviews and conducts suitability assessments on all befrienders. We also have a training roadmap to equip our befrienders with the skills, knowledge and tact to support families. As a start, our volunteer befrienders will be paired with MSF colleagues to befriend these families. This way, we tap on both the expertise of our colleagues and the energies of the community.

Looking ahead, we will strengthen backroom integration across agencies. Many ComLink families are also supported by other programmes, such as KidSTART for children up to six years old, UPLIFT for Primary and Secondary school students, or M³'s Project DIAN for Malay-Muslim families. Agencies that run these programmes often carry out similar functions. For instance, they need a database to support the families' progress and a system to train and manage volunteers. We will, therefore, try to consolidate some of these common systems and processes across agencies and manage them centrally. This will also reduce coordination costs and enable us to provide more integrated support as we gear our systems to look at the progress of families more holistically, instead of along agency- or programme-specific lines.

To sum up, I have set out the many things that we are doing to transform our social service delivery ecosystem along our new paradigm. These are not technical fixes or technical changes. These manifest the shift that Minister Masagos Zulkifli talked about in our social service paradigm.

At the same time, this will also empower our frontline colleagues and social work professionals so that they, too, can focus on the most meaningful part of their mission – to support their clients through their challenges.

Finally, we hope that our efforts will also galvanise the wider community to join us, with the assurance that their contributions will have greater impact. From community and religious groups to corporate partners, many give their time and resources generously to tackle inequality; ComLink and our other efforts to strengthen social service delivery help them achieve greater social impact by better identifying the specific needs of low-income families, through befriending and data integration across agencies; and minimising duplication and wastage across agencies, through stronger coordination of our efforts.

Through asset-based community development and tighter social, health and community collaboration, we focus not only on the needs and gaps that exist in our society, but also the strengths that we can grow, nurture and tap on. This means building up resources in the community, investing in our families and creating the conditions that enable families to achieve their aspirations.

We need all the help that we can get. We invite everyone to join the MSFCare Network, which Minister Masagos Zulkifli launched earlier this year, to explore volunteering and giving opportunities and connect with like-minded people in making a difference to our society.

Let us work together to build a caring and cohesive society, so that all families can be more resilient and benefit from our society of opportunities. [Applause.]

The Chairman: Minister of State Sun Xueling.

The Minister of State for Social and Family Development (Ms Sun Xueling): Minister Masagos Zulkifli had earlier spoken on the important role that families play in our lives and society and on how we will make Singapore a great place for families. Families provide the basic ingredients for us to grow into resilient and caring individuals. When family relationships are strong, they provide a safety net for individuals and a safe harbour to go home to. Families can also empower us to contribute meaningfully to society and lead happy and fulfilling lives.

MSF is committed to providing support to build strong families and strong family relationships. Today, I will elaborate on three key areas of our efforts to do so. First, we celebrate and support families with varying needs throughout all stages of their life journey. Second, we will continue to build a fairer and more inclusive society where men and women can realise their career and family aspirations. Third, we will continue to invest heavily in early childhood development, so that every child can have a good start in life.

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Chairperson, families have played a central role in supporting us through the ups and downs in the past two years of the pandemic. In the face of COVID-19 measures, we all have found ways to adapt and care for our family members to the best of our abilities.

It is thus timely to celebrate and strengthen the important role that families play in our lives, as Mr Murali Pillai, Ms Ng Ling Ling and Mr Seah Kian Peng have mentioned.

Since 2014, about 58,000 parents have benefited from our evidence-based parenting programmes in MOE Primary and Secondary schools. In 2021, we started the Families for Life @ Community initiative (FFLC), in Nee Soon Central and Choa Chu Kang, to bring these programmes into the community so that more families can benefit. We will progressively introduce FFLC to more towns from 2022.

Building on MSF's sustained efforts to strengthen families, we will designate 2022 as the Year of Celebrating SG Families (YCF). During YCF, we will scale up family bonding activities and continue to offer family enrichment programmes to equip couples and families with skills to cope with common stressors.

Families for Life (FFL) will continue to disseminate the "Family and Me" preschool resource packages to cultivate an appreciation of family from a young age and nurture family values through family songs, activities and big books. We expanded this to around 50% of preschools last year and will reach out to remaining preschools by 2025.

YCF will also build on the work of the Alliance for Action to Strengthen Marriages and Family Relationships (AFAM), which I chair. Mr Gan Thiam Poh had asked for an update.

AFAM was set up last year to co-create and implement solutions with key stakeholders and community groups in six Focal Areas (FAs). Allow me to share the preliminary direction for each FA.

FA1, otherwise known as FAM Connections, led by FFL, will increase awareness and adoption of resources and evidence-based programmes on marriage and parenting. FFL will work closely with the Centre for Fathering, Mums for Life, the People's Association and many other ground-up groups.

We will also work closely with faith communities via FA6, or Faith and Families, which will organise cross-sharing of experiences and learning points by religious organisations on their efforts to strengthen marriages and family relationships.

For the other focal areas, FA2, Support for Young Couples, will strengthen the delivery and uptake of marriage preparation and enrichment programmes. We also aim to guide newly-weds in considering fertility health issues.

FA3, or Parenting Together, will engage parents to identify key child-raising challenges, especially as young children grow up in the digital age and face mental well-being challenges. We will encourage more parents to take up evidence-based parenting programmes, such as Triple P and Signpost.

Alongside FA3's work, MSF and MOE will develop resources to empower parents to support their child's mental health and well-being under the Interagency Taskforce on Mental Health and Well-being, which I had touched on during MOE's COS.

Even as we celebrate families this year, we recognise that family relationships are a constant work-in-progress. Mr Melvin Yong asked about how MSF will support stressed families.

FA4, Support for Single Parents, and FA5, Support for Families with Early Risks, will work closely with partners to deliver and develop initiatives that support families which may face challenges.

Mr Louis Ng asked about support for single unwed parents. This is a focus area under FA4, Support for Single Parents.

The Government provides Singaporean families with broad-based benefits to support their children's development, regardless of their parents' marital status. I would like to list out 12-line items which are benefits available for both married and unwed parents. They are MediSave Grants for Newborns, MediShield Life Coverage, Infant Care Subsidy, Childcare Subsidy, Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Concession, education subsidies, healthcare subsidies, Baby Bonus Children Development Account (CDA), including CDA First Step, Childcare Leave, Unpaid Infant Care Leave, Maternity Leave and Adoption Leave.

Our Marriage and Parenthood incentives aim to promote marriage and encourage parenthood within marriage. This reflects the desired and prevailing societal norm.

And these include the Baby Bonus Cash Gift, Working Mother's Child Relief and Parenthood Tax Rebate. Single parents who need additional social support can approach Social Service Offices (SSOs) and Family Service Centres (FSCs) for assistance.

Through FA4, Support for Single Parents, we are working with stakeholders and community partners to understand and address pain points that single parents have. We had conducted focus group discussions and understand that single parents face challenges with childminding, access to employment opportunities and in some cases, specific cases around housing. On childminding, MSF is partnering a Social Service Agency (SSA) to pilot a childminding service outside childcare centres' operating hours. We will share more information on this soon.

To support upstream efforts to prevent family violence, FA5 will develop initiatives to raise awareness and share information on the building of safe, respectful and healthy relationships.

FA5 will complement our broader efforts to tackle family violence. There has been a steady increase in the number of enquiries and new cases on family violence received by Family Violence Specialist Centres and the Integrated Services for Individual and Family Protection Specialist Centres in recent years. For instance, there were 2,906 enquiries in FY2018, of which 891 new cases were taken up. In FY2020, there were 4,574 enquiries, of which 1,103 new cases were taken up.

The Government has accepted, in principle, all 16 recommendations from the Taskforce on Family Violence which Mr Melvin Yong had asked about. Various agencies, including MSF, will work with our partners to implement them over the next few years.

For instance, as recommended by the task force, the MSF refreshed the Break the Silence public education campaign in November 2021 to increase awareness of the types of abuse, including non-physical forms of abuse, and to encourage survivors and bystanders to seek help.

Also, in line with the task force's recommendations, we are enhancing our approach to better rehabilitate perpetrators of family violence. This includes amending the Women's Charter to enable mandatory assessment and treatment orders to be made for perpetrators with mental health conditions that contributed to the risk of family violence.

While the primary responsibility for complying with rehabilitative Court orders lies with the perpetrator, we recognise the importance of strengthening rehabilitative approaches to encourage perpetrators to complete their rehabilitation. To provide more intensive and specialised support and rehabilitation for perpetrators, we will also deploy forensic-trained psychologists to community-based family violence specialist agencies by the end of this year.

Not all perpetrators require alternative accommodation – perpetrators assessed to have low-risk of recurrent violent behaviours may receive intervention while living in their family home. Others may prefer staying with other family members or friends.

To enhance the safety of survivors, we will implement a more structured referral system for social service professionals, so that perpetrators may be provided shelter, if they require accommodation. We will study the feasibility of a mandatory structured residential programme for the rehabilitation of high-risk perpetrators.

Chairperson, women have always been key pillars of our families and society. While Singaporean women have made considerable progress in the past decades, many still bear a disproportionate amount of family and caregiving responsibilities and may face glass ceilings due to gender stereotypes. Hence, our work to strengthen families must include efforts to support our women.

Mr Seah Kian Peng asked about the initiatives in the White Paper, which sets out concrete action plans to collectively realise our vision of a fairer and more inclusive society. We have been rolling out some of these plans over the past year.

For example, to protect women against violence and harm, we revised the sentencing framework for sexual and hurt offences, with increased penalties for some offences. We also released the report by the Task Force on Family Violence.

To address gender stereotypes through education, we refreshed the Character and Citizenship Education curriculum to help our students understand the equity of familial roles and gender stereotypes about careers.

Across all domains, we will consider changes to legislation and policies. But policies must be complemented by whole-of-society action and shifts in mindsets and behaviours. More policies and initiatives will be announced when the White Paper is presented to Parliament.

Chairperson, the Government is committed to supporting Singaporean families in their journey to raise their children. I will next be speaking on MSF's initiatives to give every child a good start in life, regardless of their family background.

We have been steadily building up preschool places. The number of full-day preschool places has more than doubled in the past decade – from 90,000 places in 2012 to around 200,000 as of end-2021. We will develop about 10,000 more full-day places by 2023, to meet the growing demand for preschools.

Ms Joan Pereira will be happy to know that these new preschool places are concentrated in areas with more young families. For example, in the two newer estates of Sengkang and Punggol, the number of infant and childcare places has increased by nearly 60% in the past five years.

By around 2025, eight in 10 preschoolers can have a place in our Government-supported preschools.

We will further lower fee caps at Government-supported preschools in the coming years, so that working families pay around Primary school fees plus after-school student care fees for full-day childcare in the medium term.

We agree with Mr Melvin Yong that the quality of early childhood education is critical to child development. Hence, we will continue to drive quality improvements in the sector, even as we make preschools more accessible and affordable.

Today, I will be sharing our plans to further raise the quality of early childhood professionals and programmes, to complement parental guidance at home.

We have increased the number of early childhood educators from 18,000 in 2018 to over 23,000 last year.

To better support the professional development of early childhood educators and leaders, we will provide clearer guidance on career and training pathways. While early childhood professionals have long been undertaking training, efforts have been uneven across the sector.

Early childhood educators and leaders are crucial to driving the quality of education and care of our children. Today, it is my pleasure to announce the introduction of a Leadership Development Framework (LDF) to the sector. The LDF will guide educators to strengthen competencies in curriculum, pedagogy, as well as strategic and administrative leadership.

We will also enhance the Advanced Diploma in Early Childhood Leadership as a milestone course to better develop these competencies in our educators before they are appointed as centre leaders.

We will also do more to raise the quality of teaching and encourage the sharing of good teaching practices across the sector.

I am pleased to share that we are developing a new Quality Teaching Tool. While many preschools already have quality teaching practices, this tool will set a common standard across the sector and guide educators on the use of effective pedagogical practices, identified based on empirical research and ground practice.

We will also launch the Early Childhood Learning Communities, starting April this year. These learning communities will foster peer sharing of pedagogical knowledge and practices among senior educators and curriculum specialists, focusing on domain areas crucial to child development, including Social and Emotional Development, and Language and Literacy. Members of these Learning Communities will be nurtured to become future curriculum and pedagogical leaders, and to lead Communities of Practice to benefit some 300 early childhood educators within the next two years.

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To ensure programme quality in preschools, the Government has also developed national curriculum frameworks to guide the development of their programmes and curriculum.

ECDA will review the Early Years Development Framework for children aged three and below to include areas, such as the learning of Mother Tongue languages. The revised framework will also provide more detailed guidance to support educators in creating learning experiences to develop important knowledge and skills like socioemotional skills in children. The refreshed framework will be ready by end-2023.

We recognise that some families face additional challenges and need additional support in developing their children's potential.

The Government is committed to strengthening support for children from low-income families so that we narrow the gap starting from their early years. In tandem with KidSTART's nationwide scale-up, we will deepen partnerships with corporate and community partners through the Growing Together with KidSTART initiative.

Ms Joan Pereira will be happy to hear that since the initiative began in 2019, we have received over $4 million in cash donations and sponsorships. Over 1,000 volunteers have stepped forward since 2016 to provide support for KidSTART families, including encouraging eligible families to join KidSTART and helping to pack and deliver essential items to families. I sincerely thank all our partners and volunteers for their contributions.

The Government is also committed to ensuring the adequate provision of early intervention, or EI, services for children with developmental needs.

To meet increased demand for subsidised EI services, ECDA will expand the number of places under the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children, otherwise known as EIPIC, through the construction of two new EI centres. ECDA will also increase the number of providers under the Enhanced Pilot for Private Intervention Providers, or PPIP programme, from 10 to 16. Chairperson, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the central role that families play in supporting us through the many ups and downs of life. As such, it is timely for us to designate 2022 as the Year of Celebrating SG Families to celebrate and support Singaporean families.

Last year, we set up the Alliance for Action to Strengthen Marriages and Family Relationships (AFAM) to work with key stakeholders and community groups to co-create and implement solutions to strengthen marriages and families, including families with young children and those with early risks.

To provide upstream support to parents of young children, MSF is supporting the Families for Life @ Community initiative by offering more marriage and parenting programmes that are conveniently accessible.

We will also press on with our efforts in tackling family violence and will implement the recommendations from the Taskforce on Family Violence over the next few years. For example, we will make legislative amendments to the Women's Charter to strengthen the protection and support for survivors of family violence as well as rehabilitation for perpetrators.

On early childhood education, we will further raise the quality of early childhood professionals and programmes. To do so, we will support the professional development of early childhood professionals and develop a Quality Teaching Tool to raise the quality of teaching. We will also review the Early Years Development Framework to support educators in creating enriching learning experiences for our children.

To provide more support to children in lower-income families, we will progressively scale up KidSTART nationwide from 2023. This will equip parents and caregivers with the knowledge and skills to support their children's well-being and development.

(In English): Chairman, in closing, it takes a whole-of-society effort to make Singapore a great place for families. MSF is committed to journeying with families through all seasons of life, providing nurturing learning environments for their children and paving the way to a fairer and more inclusive society.

We will continue to work closely with our partners to do so and invite all Singaporeans to join us in the Year of Celebrating SG Families. [Applause.]

The Chairman: Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Eric Chua): Mdm Chairman, my colleagues have shared how families are the bedrock of our society. In a supportive family environment, we can better navigate life's many challenges.

But some families, including families with persons with disabilities, lower-income families and youths-at-risk face complex stressors and unique challenges. It is our responsibility as a society to journey with these families, share their burden and help them regain confidence to pursue their dreams and aspirations.

I will share concrete steps that MSF is taking with our partners to support these families.

Persons with disabilities face unique challenges. Family members who are caregivers to persons with disabilities often make silent sacrifices and experience caregiver stress. We recognise these difficulties and have provided greater support to these families over the years.

Ms Denise Phua, Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song and Mr Mark Chay asked about the current support for persons with disabilities and the progress of the Enabling Masterplan.

We have provided greater support in several ways.

For example, 1,700 new job and training opportunities were created last year. This includes opportunities from the new Place-and-Train and Attach-and-Train programmes, which we will extend to December this year. The Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) has supported over 2,900 persons with disabilities between September 2020 and August 2021, which MOM will extend to September 2022 this year as well.

We also extended the School-to-Work Transition Programme in January last year and launched the Enabling Mark in October 2020 to recognise inclusive employers, amongst others.

In October 2021, we increased funding for Day Activity Centres (DACs) by $3 million, or 20%. This will allow our DACs to hire more care staff and to increase the quality of care for clients. We are similarly reviewing the Sheltered Workshop programme.

We have also kept assistive technology devices affordable for persons with disabilities and seniors through the Assistive Technology Fund (ATF) and the Seniors' Mobility and Enabling Fund, which Mr Pritam Singh raised.

From April 2019 to December 2021, the ATF benefited close to 7,000 persons, with 66% of beneficiaries from households with a per capita income of $800 or less. Permanent Residents are also eligible for the ATF, with differentiated subsidy rates in line with our position to provide more subsidies to citizens. From April 2019 to December 2021, about one out of 60 ATF beneficiaries were PRs who are seniors.

The most common claims included mobility devices like motorised and manual wheelchairs, hearing aids and daily living aids.

We recently increased the ATF subsidy for Singaporeans with per capita household income of between $801 and $2,000 and expanded the range of items that seniors can be subsidised for to include medical devices like oxygen concentrators and suction pumps.

More can be done to support persons with disabilities. I am co-chairing a cross-sector committee with Mr Gan Seow Kee, vice chairperson of the Singapore Business Federation, to develop our next edition of the Enabling Masterplan, or EMP2030. EMP2030 will set meaningful longer-term goals to foster a more caring and inclusive Singapore, which will continually be monitored to ensure that we are on track on our objectives.

Today, there is a gap in services for adult persons with disabilities who do not attend any regular disability service after graduating from Special Education schools. We aim to gradually close this gap. One of the ways is through piloting regional Enabling Services Hubs (ESH) and Enabling Business Hubs (EBH).

The Enabling Services Hubs (ESHs), co-funded by the Tote Board, provide persons with disabilities above 18 with a greater range of options for flexible social and learning activities.

Each ESH will identify and reach out to persons with disabilities and their caregivers in their region, understand their needs and link them to relevant support. Those at risk will be further supported by community befrienders. It will also provide on-site services such as continual learning programmes and social inclusion activities, for persons with disabilities and respite care for caregivers.

While the ESHs serve those with care needs, the EBHs support work-capable persons with disabilities who require customised and longer-term support to work. We will share more information on these pilots later this year.

Ms Rahayu Mahzam and Ms Yeo Wan Ling raised an important point about doing more as a community to support caregivers. Last year, NCSS, SG Enable and community partners formed the SG Together Alliance for Action (AfA) for Caregivers of Persons with Disabilities to co-develop a self-sustaining community support model for caregivers. We started with two pilot sites in Boon Lay and Kampong Glam and the AfA has begun to support the implementation of two projects.

Project 3i is a caregiver-led initiative to provide social and emotional support for caregivers that is integrative, individualised and intentional. It will connect caregivers to form community networks and support caregivers through peer mentorship and professional support.

The second project is Community Circles, where a small group of friends, neighbours, or volunteers forms a "circle" of support around caregivers, to provide practical and emotional support.

These projects have initiated an ecosystem of community and peer support that reaches out to caregivers. We will evaluate the outcomes from the pilots and facilitate collaborations, so that more networks can be established to support caregivers.

Minister Masagos Zulkifli and Minister Desmond Lee highlighted how MSF has been working to strengthen our social safety net and the delivery of social services so that low-income households requiring assistance can get comprehensive, coordinated and convenient help.

Mr Leon Perera will be happy to know that we have been tackling food security and unhealthy eating as part of this broader effort.

We have helped low-income households to defray the cost of purchases at supermarkets, hawker centres and heartland merchants. This includes grocery vouchers for eligible households in 2020 and Community Development Council (CDC) vouchers in 2021 and as part of the Household Support Package (HSP) in Budget 2022.

We also provide comprehensive support to households on ComCare schemes, which can include cash assistance for basic living expenses, such as food. ComCare cash assistance rates, which are regularly reviewed, take into account food-related expenditures based on the Health Promotion Board's nutritional guidelines to ensure that families can meet their nutritional needs.

The community also plays a big part in tackling food insecurity. Many charities and community groups have stepped forward to offer food support – dried rations, cooked meals, grocery vouchers – to families facing food needs.

As Ms Denise Phua has mentioned, the efforts of these groups have gone a long way in tackling food insecurity in Singapore but there are some overlaps and some gaps in the demand and supply of food support.

MSF has been actively engaging food support organisations and community partners to coordinate food support. We convened the Charity Food Workgroup in 2019 to co-create a more responsive and coordinated food support ecosystem with different stakeholders.

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In February this year, we soft-launched the FoodConnect directory and database. This platform allows families and social service agencies to search for food support organisations based on their location and dietary requirements, so that families can receive food which meets their needs. This allows us to move towards a more data-driven and choice-led food landscape where families can choose their preferred type of food support.

But we also want to go beyond addressing immediate needs and look at families' longer-term needs. This is where Community Link, or ComLink, comes in. Dr Shahira Abdullah asked about ComLink's objectives and our strategy to help families to attain them.

In the short term, ComLink focuses on helping families with children and youths living in rental housing to achieve stability, where their basic needs, such as day-to-day living expenses and whether their children are attending school regularly, are addressed. In the medium term, we support families towards self-reliance, such as to obtain a stable job and to sustain that employment. Stability and self-reliance then serve as building blocks towards the longer-term goal of social mobility, where the family achieves real income growth and the children and youths are able to achieve better life outcomes.

ComLink achieves these objectives through its three key pillars.

First, we proactively reach out to families upstream to understand their needs, strengths and aspirations. We have reached out to more than 6,800 ComLink families so far. We then provide targeted and coordinated case support and then journey with each ComLink family to address their issues before they become more deep-seated. Together with the family, a customised action plan addressing the families' issues step-by-step is assembled. A pair of befrienders provide even closer support. Befrienders journey with families through their ups and downs and help to keep families' sights on their long-term aspirations, dreams and goals. Together, they work with the SSO coordinators to address issues that each of these families might face.

For our support to be effective, all stakeholders must work together. This is where ComLink's third pillar comes in, where the Government brings together different community partners, corporates and volunteers to provide support for families, based on collective knowledge about a community's needs and strengths.

Together, we have introduced some 74 ComLink programmes to date, including enrichment programmes, to provide children with holistic development, sports programmes to engage youths and support groups for parents. This complements the schemes and services that Government agencies are providing and, through such customised support, we can then have a stab at a transformative effect and set up families for success.

Mr Mohd Fahmi Bin Aliman will be glad to know that we are fully on track to scale up ComLink over the next few years. We launched ComLink for 11 towns in 2021 and will kickstart efforts for the remaining 10 ComLink towns in the coming months.

We also want to give all our youths the opportunity to succeed in life. For those with difficult backgrounds and challenges, it is even more important that we support them.

The family plays a central role in guiding youths down the right path, particularly during adolescence, and being an anchor through the transition into adulthood. MSF is committed to helping families to do this better.

We recognise that mental well-being is an important point not just for youths, but for everyone. As part of the Interagency Taskforce on Mental Health and Well-being, MSF is working together with various Ministries and agencies across multiple sectors to strengthen mental well-being in Singapore.

We will increase accessibility to a continuum of services across our healthcare institutions, schools and community agencies, so that everyone can receive the appropriate level of care and support. We also want to make sure that these services are well-integrated, so that it is easier to navigate the mental health ecosystem.

National Council of Social Service (NCSS) will expand the Beyond The Label campaign to involve more partners and the public in encouraging early help-seeking and greater acceptance of persons with mental health conditions.

As Minister of State Gan Siow Huang has previously mentioned, NCSS and MOM are studying ways to strengthen support for persons with mental health conditions before and during employment and for their colleagues, so as to create a more inclusive work environment.

These are all complex issues that can only be solved through a whole-of-society effort. As Senior Minister of State Janil Puthucheary has mentioned, the task force will be conducting a public consultation on these ideas and we look forward to developing a national strategy and action plan together with all Singaporeans.

Another group of youths who may need special attention are those who leave the formal education system early. Like Mr Shawn Huang Wei Zhong and Mr Seah Kian Peng, we believe in the tremendous value of mentoring for these youths.

Co-designed with MOE and ITE, and in partnership with Trybe Limited, our Career Advice and Mentoring Programme (CAMP) will expand networks of positive relationships for youths who leave ITE prematurely and empower them to achieve their aspirations. Under CAMP, mentors are matched with mentees based on the mentees' industries of interest and will guide their mentees in exploring their interests and broadening their exposure to opportunities. Since its launch in January this year, 14 mentors and 10 youths have come on board and more are expected to join in the coming months. Over the two years' pilot, we aim to support 100 youths.

One of the mentors who have stepped forward is Lawrence Tharekheshwaren Supramany, an ITE alumnus with over 4.5 years of experience in the automotive industry. In his youth, Lawrence was involved in a riot. However, he turned his life around with the support of his community, notably from his pastor, who provided guidance and tutoring. Having personally experienced the transformative effect of a mentor in his life, Lawrence intends to inspire other youths as a CAMP mentor.

MSF will track the outcomes of the CAMP youths, such as placement in education, training or employment and assess the suitability of scaling up CAMP beyond the pilot phase.

As Ms Denise Phua has mentioned, the Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) is an important life planning tool should one lose mental capacity. As of 2021, about 130,000 Singapore Citizens, or about 4% of all eligible adult citizens, have registered their LPAs.

To promote greater awareness of pre-planning tools, such as LPA and Advance Care Planning, MSF and MOH will conduct a joint awareness campaign later this year. We will also launch the new Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) Online system, which allows citizens to digitally make an LPA in a simple, convenient and secure manner. The fee waiver for LPA applications will also run right through March 2023.

On deputyship, there were 2,794 Court orders appointing deputies in the past five years, with the number growing at about 25% annually. To simplify the application process, the Family Justice Courts have enabled applicants to apply for general orders through the Simplified Track on the Integrated Family Application Management System since 2019. This, typically, covers powers to consent to medical and dental treatment, care arrangements, manage bank or CPF accounts and insurance, set up Special Needs Trust Company accounts, and employment contracts.

MSF also offers the Assisted Deputyship Application Programme (ADAP) for persons with disabilities who do not have mental capacity and who are enrolled in various Special Education schools, Day Activity Centres and Sheltered Workshops. ADAP applicants are provided with mental capacity assessment reports at no cost to the applicant and guidance for applying via the Simplified Track.

The Simplified Track costs $40 in Court filing fees and are usually granted within four to six weeks. The costs and duration are higher for more complex Court orders, which, typically, involve adults and elderly who lose capacity without making an LPA. Thus, I urge all Singaporeans to have your LPAs registered, to provide peace of mind to yourselves and to your loved ones. We will continue to work with community partners to facilitate access to pro-bono or low-cost services. Madam, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Families are the bedrock of our society. When our youths face challenges, families will always be a refuge to comfort them. Families are the source of purpose and strength to guide our youths back to the right path and bounce back. With families' love and care, I believe that our youths can grow into resilient individuals, fulfil their potential and, ultimately, contribute back to society.

The mental well-being of our youths is an important priority. While parents will always remain a core pillar of support, the Government will continue working closely with our partners to complement family support. We will transform the YMWBN into a national network to develop whole-of-society partnerships to support the mental well-being of all in Singapore.

Youths who leave formal education early also merit special attention. Last year, we announced a pilot mentoring programme for students who leave ITE prematurely. We hope that this programme will empower them to achieve their aspirations with a positive mindset. We aim to support 100 youths over the two-year pilot.

MSF will continue to work with the community to strengthen our families.

(In English): To conclude, Madam, MSF has spoken about the suite of policies and programmes to support families with different needs. We will continue to work with the community to build resilient individuals, strong families and a caring society.

Families serve as a beacon of light in our lives. It is an inspiring light that pushes us to greater heights. It is a guiding light that always leads us back if we ever take the wrong path. But it is also a comforting light that provides us with refuge whenever the going gets tough and where we need to look towards to share our joys and anxieties. Our families also serve as compasses that help us navigate through life. Families shape our values, beliefs and a sense of purpose. Through the storms of life, we need only reach into our pockets for our compass to help us all find our true north.

So, in this Year of Celebrating SG Families, let us all aim to become a bright beacon of light and a trusty compass for our families, just as they are for us. [Applause.]

The Chairman: Clarifications? Mr Seah Kian Peng.

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade): Mdm Chairman, I have three clarifications to ask. The first is to Minister Masagos Zulkifli. First, I thank him for reiterating the importance of strengthening family resilience and his articulation of what family means. Recently, Minister K Shanmugam made a statement on section 377A of the Penal Code and the changing societal attitudes towards marriage and family. So, my first clarification to the Minister is whether he could give us the Ministry's position on this.

My second clarification relates to single mothers and is addressed to Minister of State Sun Xueling. I know she is very passionate and empathetic to the stresses that single mothers face. She has explained some of the things that have been done for them. I would like to ask whether she could further elaborate on what single mothers could expect, the areas that the Ministry is looking at.

12.45 pm

And my third and final clarification is relating to ComLink, either Minister Desmond Lee or Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua could address this. We all know the importance of going upstream and the good results that ComLink has achieved so far. I note that it has already been rolled out to 11 towns and will be rolled out to 10 more soon. My question is, if resource is not a constraint and seeing the good results that have come out so far, I am sure all the 10 towns are looking forward to this. So, how can we roll this out even faster and if this could be shared with especially the 10 towns that are expecting this? What can we do to accelerate this so that we can really make a difference to the families that will benefit from this?

Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: I thank the Member Mr Seah Kian Peng for his three questions to open up the clarifications.

As Minister for Home Affairs and Law Mr K Shanmugam has shared, the Government recognises that section 377A of the Penal Code is a divisive issue. The Court has acknowledged that the Government's current approach on this matter avoids driving an even deeper wedge in our society.

Our society can be described as largely traditional. However, we now have a wider range of views and attitudes where families and marriage are concerned. For example, take the attitude towards mixed marriages. More than 30 years ago, one in 10 of all marriages were inter-ethnic. Today, it is doubled – almost one in five. And you see this more common, even among ourselves and our Members here, very acceptable to our society.

We, therefore, are not surprised that we are seeing an increasing acceptance of LGBT persons socially among Singaporeans. In fact, an IPS survey in 2019 showed that while small, 11.4% of the respondents felt that sexual relations between two same-sex adults were not wrong at all. This is still double the figure in 2013, which was about 5.6%.

But while societal attitudes are gradually shifting, the majority value and wish to preserve the traditional family – that of a man and a woman marrying and raising the child or children in a stable family unit. This was also reflected in statements, consequent to Minister K Shanmugam's statement in Parliament recently, by various parties. Family continues to be the bedrock of our society and contributes to social stability, allows children to thrive. We will uphold the traditional family in our Government policies and laws, reflecting our societal norms and values. These include marriage, parenthood, adoption, fertility treatment even, housing and inheritance, amongst others.

At the same time, we must continue to ensure that LGBT persons are protected from violence, harassment and abuse. For instance, the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) contains a range of both civil and criminal measures that can protect all victims and is meant to protect all victims against offences involving harassment and abuse.

From MSF, through public education campaigns, such as Break the Silence, to raise awareness and encourage victims, regardless of nationality, marital status, gender, race, religion or even sexual orientation, to seek help early. We also urge the public to step forward to report violence and abuse where LGBT cases may be involved.

Concerns surrounding section 377A and its implication will still have the potential to polarise society. It is an issue that involves deeply-held beliefs and values and divergent societal views and goals. We thank the religious, sectoral, civil society and LGBT groups that have shown support for civil dialogue and respect for the values of others, even when different from their own.

We will continue to adopt the approach of civil dialogue, working with all, involving all stakeholders as we chart our own unique Singapore way forward, without creating sudden shifts and deep divisions in our society.

The Chairman: Minister of State Sun Xueling.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member Mr Seah Kian Peng for his clarification. I have said this before and my views have not changed – I respect single parents, single unwed parents, for the love and care that they have for their children. And I fully recognise that it is not easy to bring up children, even more so single-handedly.

That is why in the Alliance for Action to Strengthen Marriages and Family Relationships (AFAM), we have a dedicated focal area on single parents. Specifically, for the areas which we are following up on in our dialogues and engagement sessions with single unwed parents, a few areas, a few pain points, have been highlighted to us.

Firstly, on childminding. That is why, in my main response earlier, I had talked about the childminding service pilot that MSF will be partnering a social service agency to provide childminding service beyond a regular childcare centre's operating hours. And this is important because we know that when we solve childminding issues and concerns of single parents, they then will have the capacity, the time and the energies to look into employment.

The second area – when it comes to employment support, we are having discussions with NTUC, with community partners, to see what are the areas we can assist our single unwed parents in, be it in training or finding local opportunities for these single parents to be able to re-enter the workforce and get on a sustainable path with their children.

The third pain point that has been highlighted to us has been around housing. In this particular area, I have had the opportunity to work with Member Mr Louis Ng for many years when we have discussed this in Parliament and in my time at the MND. Members will recall that Minister of State Faishal Ibrahim had recently shared in Parliament that, generally, single unwed parents can receive the outcome of their rental flat application within three weeks of submitting all required information, although additional time may be required for complex cases.

These three areas – childminding, employment support, housing – have been brought up as pain points and we are actively looking at how we can solve these pain points for our single unwed parents.

I also wanted to highlight that after the focus group discussion that my team at MSF and I had with the single unwed parents – and Members like Mr Louis Ng and other Members of Parliament had joined me for the session as well – my team had followed up individually with the single unwed parents to clarify any outstanding issues that they had raised, which sometimes also arises out of misunderstandings or miscommunications of Government policies in their interactions with Government agencies.

The Chairman: Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua.

Mr Eric Chua: Thank you, Mdm Chairman. I want to thank the Member for his clarification on ComLink and I also want to thank the Member for attributing the adjective "success" with ComLink at this point. But I do think it is a little bit premature.

We started ComLink with four sites in 2019 – Jalan Kukoh, Boon Lay, Kembangan-Chai Chee as well as Marsiling. So, we have piloted that at four sites. We thought the model worked well and that is why we are going into a two-phased approach: 11 towns last year, as well as 10 towns this year.

What we are trying to achieve through ComLink is our promise in our Social Compact: to help our low-income families. This is really going for the long haul because if you look at the broad objectives of stability, self-reliance and social mobility we are talking about – and mostly, on social mobility – we are talking about long-term outcomes.

Through ComLink, we are tracking various outcomes, indicators, not just in terms of immediate process indicators, but also perception. Finally, and most importantly, in my own opinion, outcome indicators – where do the families end up?

I want to stress the fact that, actually, time or speed might not be of the essence in this scenario. Because we are talking about having a very customised, very bespoke approach to going to each family, understanding them, both their challenges that they face, as well as the aspirations and dreams that they have; and then helping them to take away, remove or sidestep some of these challenges while, at the same time, working towards their longer-term goals, their aspirations.

I do not think it is something that can be achieved overnight. You cannot get to Rome in one evening but we can most certainly do that if we adopt a whole-of-society approach – where the community, our social service agencies and the Government come together. Then, I think we have a fair chance at success for this programme.

The Chairman: I see quite a few hands. So, I am going to ask Members to please ask your questions succinctly and for the replies to also be short. Mr Gerald Giam.

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): Thank you, Madam. I have some questions on the adult disability care. Is the staff-client ratio of adult disability care facilities lower than that of the teacher-student ratio at SPED schools? If so, why is there this disparity between the two? Because this is what causes the cliff effect for those who are graduating from SPED schools. And lastly, does MSF have any plans to close this gap, given that most SPED school graduates will need to attend post-18 disability care facilities?

Mr Eric Chua: I thank the Member for his clarification. On the first question of whether the staff ratio for the adult disability care facilities is on par with the SPED schools, I do not have the numbers for the staff ratios for SPED schools on hand at the moment. So, I cannot give a fair comparison across these two types of facilities.

On the second point about closing the gaps, I do think that what we are doing is journeying with our persons with disabilities and, as I mentioned earlier, what we have done is to, over time, where necessary, increase funding. For instance, I mentioned increased funding for our day activity centres by some 20% or $3 million last year and we have also increased funding for our adult disability homes by about 25% most recently as well.

Our intention is really to make sure that we cater for the right amount as well as the right type of services that our persons with disabilities need within the community. In terms of closing the gap, that is definitely what we hope to do. That is why in the iterations of the three Enabling Masterplan (EMP) since 2007, we have been keeping at it. We have been working on the fourth edition. As Members know now, the results and findings of which will be made known in the later part of this year. I hope that Members can look out for the announcements that we make under EMP 2030.

1.00 pm

The Chairman: Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): I really appreciate Parliament Secretary Eric Chua's sincerity in working with us on the ground. I also appreciate Mr Gerald Giam's concern for persons with disabilities. My supplementary question is whether MSF would consider convening a very specific group – either you call it Alliance for Action (AfA) or any action group – that will look into the overall holistic needs of this community. Because to ask for, say, free transport or free schools is not complete. MOE, I computed, spends about $260 million a year – there are some more cohorts coming and there are a lot of adults who do not have services now. So, the amount for education alone is going to be a lot bigger. There are other needs.

Rather than asking individually, I do think we need a holistic strategic study of the entire needs of the disabled, then prioritise them, cluster them, size it up, see what is needed and then look at how much can be supported by Government grants, how much can be supported by those who can afford a bit more, and those who are in the community – Temasek Foundation or Temasek Trust for that matter, which have been very helpful – and other foundations. So, look at it holistically, convene a group that will look at it as a whole, size it, compute how much is required and then see how we can actually operationalise the whole thing for sustainability and to meet the prioritised needs.

The Chairman: Ms Denise Phua, please ask your question.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua.

Mr Eric Chua: Thanks, Mdm Chairman. Likewise, I want to thank Ms Denise Phua for her passion in this area of work, which I think is really infectious whenever she is at the EMP meetings where she brings with her great ideas as well.

I want to keep this short. We will not shun away from our responsibilities on this. That is why the Disability Office, Social Policy and Services Group (SPSG) in MSF, is there, and that is why we will continually look at these issues in totality and not just look at them from our own vantage point, but to also look at them together with our partners in the community, the social service agencies. Which is why, in today's EMP 2030 Steering Committee, we have a whole range of representations from both the people, private and public sectors. I am co-chairing that with Mr Gan Seow Kee, Vice-Chairman of SBF, and I think that is a good example of how we hope to really make a difference in this disability space for good and in a sustained fashion.

And in this latest EMP, one of the bold moves that we are making – and I am letting the cat out of the bag a little bit here – is to really fix some tangible goals for ourselves as to where we want to get to in the next few years leading up to 2030, where the endpoint of the Enabling Masterplan is. It is an endpoint, but it is, to me, just a checkpoint. Because what happens after 2030? It is the fourth, but, definitely, not the last masterplan that we will have. We will have to keep working at these issues because some of these things that we want to change in society pertain to mindsets, culture, how we maybe even react to persons with disabilities in our midst. So, there is a lot of work for us to do together and I want to give the Member the assurance that we will be keeping at this for the long haul.

The Chairman: I like the passion in the room, but I would like to please remind everyone to be succinct. Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Thank you, Chairperson, I will try to keep it short. I appreciate the Ministry's efforts to increase the digitalisation efforts to make financial assistance more accessible. But given that many of the vulnerable communities are very low on their digital literacy, where they literally may not even know how to use Gmail on their phones, let alone to navigate Government portals, I would like to know what are the Ministry's efforts in trying to bridge this digital literacy gap and, if the befrienders from ComLink are meant to also support them on this front, then what are the ways that the Ministry might be looking at empowering befrienders and giving them the necessary access and safeguards around PDPA to support ComCare beneficiaries for their online applications?

Secondly, given that the process of climbing out of poverty tends to be a long one and it is not a matter of bouncing back, will the Ministry consider automatic extension of ComCare to short-term financial assistance recipients, given that, right now, it presents a disincentive to some of them attaining jobs with the uncertainty and prospect that they may lose financial assistance upon getting a job? So, would that not be a way to reduce the administrative load of the Ministry and, at the same time, helping to reduce the bandwidth tax on applicants?

The Chairman: Minister Desmond Lee.

Mr Desmond Lee: Let me address the Member's first question. The SupportGoWhere portal provides a digital enabler to help families to navigate support schemes and to be able to make the applications digitally. But we are mindful that many of our clients, including seniors, are more comfortable face-to-face, maybe on the phone, and befrienders will be a big plus. And so, all that remains – in fact, that remains core – because, in this line of work, in social service delivery, it is high-touch, high-feel. It is really an emotional connection. But a digital platform adds another layer of support.

Even in the real-world space, I have described earlier streamlined action protocols, One Client View (OneCV) and Case Connect working in the backend to enable organisations to work around the client's needs and their families, even as the client approaches the Social Services Office (SSO) physically. And for clients who approach the SSO, way before COVID-19 or just before COVID-19, we had already put in place video conferencing capacities to enable a client of the SSO to communicate not just with the SSO officer physically but virtually be able to link-up with the HDB officer and, of course, with other agencies as well. So, that remains an important way to support those who may not be so digitally inclined to seek help that way.

The Chairman: Minister Masagos Zulkifli.

Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: I just want to assure Ms Carrie Tan that we do not want a cliff effect and disincentivise someone from graduating. We are not there to kick people out of ComCare or get them out of ComCare because we just do not want to give them support. We want to enable them and, as mentioned in my speech, if Ms Carrie Tan has heard carefully, the SSOs are given discretion to continue support even after the person has found, for example, a job, a better job, a better paying job, and not suffer this cliff effect that we may have, inadvertently, through our policy, done in the past. This is not how we are going to go forward.

The Chairman: Mr Don Wee.

Mr Don Wee (Chua Chu Kang): Thank you, Mdm Chairman. I have three questions. Minister Masagos Zulkifli mentioned that, through ComLink, there will be a proactive approach to appear at deserving residents' doorsteps. So, I guess the lower-hanging fruits at this moment will be the existing clients in the SSO systems as well as there are also likely to be referrals from the Family Service Centres of ComCare recipients. So, my question is, can the potential pool of clients be expanded to beneficiaries of the MOE Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), MediFund as well as the various self-help groups like SINDA, MENDAKI or CDAC? So, by doing so, their application process must have a housing type and identifier in the application process. And it will also mean that system requirements will be required.

Second question. Along the same vein, relating to the app which allows clients to apply for various schemes, I guess this is like the Municipal Services Office (MSO) OneService app equivalent for less-privileged Singaporeans. So, over time, I hope the app can also allow these clients to apply for schemes offered by the self-help groups and the ComChest accredited Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs).

Third question. I also welcome the various improvements, like OneClientView, the single means-testing approach, as well as the tele-counselling which expedites the application turnaround time. So, to improve the handshake process further, can we also explore co-locating SSOs as well as the Family Service Centres, or SSAs, in future because the newer rental precincts do not come with spacious void decks these days.

Lastly, I would also like to thank the —

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr Don Wee, you have asked quite a lot of questions. I want to leave time for others. Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua.

Mr Eric Chua: Thank you, Mdm Chairman. I also want to thank the Member for his three clarifications. First, on expanding beyond the existing pool that we have identified to include those from self-help groups, schools, FAS and whatnot, I am mindful that we already have 14,000 families identified for this year and the next. We do want to focus on them. I would say that let us focus on these 14,000 families because a bespoke and customised approach has to be had for each of these families. So, I do not think it is something that we want to take lightly. And once we are on a steady state with the existing 14,000 families, we will want to move on to as many other families that we can assist as possible. So, that is for first question.

For the second question, the answer is we will take a look at that and we will, gradually, progressively, evolve what we can provide in the technology and in the app.

The third question relates to the co-location of the different institutions, SSOs, FSCs and all that. We have piloted that at Kreta Ayer and Bukit Merah and we have co-located the SSO and FST. [Please refer to "Clarification by Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for Social and Family Development", Official Report, 10 March 2022, Vol 95, Issue No 58, Correction by Written Statement section.]

We have also co-located SSO and AIC in Bedok and also in Tampines Hub. So, these are some examples. As we evolve the delivery of social services, we can look at how we can actually co-locate some of our services as well.

The Chairman: Ms Joan Pereira. Please keep it short so that I can let the other two clarifications be asked.

Ms Joan Pereira (Tanjong Pagar): Thanks, Mdm Chairman. I have two clarifications. On the topic of preschool accessibility, I am very glad that Sengkang and Punggol will have more preschool places. Dawson, which I serve, also has many young families. So, I hope and look forward to more preschool centres there.

Second clarification, can the Ministry consider my proposal to have active reach-outs to families which have been on the waiting list for about three to six months? I hope the Ministry can reach out to them, understand their needs and help them register in a nearby centre with a vacancy, because I know most parents and grandparents will want to put their charges at a centre near their homes.

The Chairman: Minister of State Sun Xueling.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for her clarification. With the injection of new BTOs in the Dawson area, Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) has planned new centres, as well as extension of existing centres, to increase preschool places to address the increase in demand. I also want to make a general point that, for other New Towns or some of the older estates where there are new insertions of BTOs, ECDA will work closely with agencies to quickly expand places through expansion of existing centres, but bearing in mind that there are sometimes manpower constraints and they will also be looking into the development of new centres in additional sites, which will, hopefully, provide convenience to young families which have moved into these new BTOs.

On the Member's second question, currently, parents may register their interest in a preschool via the Preschool Search Portal, which is an online self-help portal. On this portal, parents can actually search by proximity, understand more about which are the centres that are available, what is the waitlist situation like.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Every three months, the portal will inform the parents about the latest situation around the preschool places. And if the Member is aware of specific instances whereby the parent is still unable to locate a preschool which is suitable for the family and the child, to please highlight the situation to myself, to ECDA, and we will follow up closely to find a preschool which, hopefully, the parents can accept.

Sometimes, parents can have their specific requirements around specific preschools. They may sometimes want a specific preschool within a specific walking distance from home and we will try very much to accommodate. So, on a national level, in terms of preschool capacity, we have enough, but we recognise that, in localised areas, there may be areas with higher demand and, when that happens, ECDA will work closely with the parents and the advisor there to help those young families living in those areas.

1.15 pm

The Chairman: Mr Leon Perera.

Mr Leon Perera (Aljunied): Thank you, Mr Chairman, Sir. Just three clarifications for Minister Masagos Zulkifli. I will try and keep it short.

Firstly, would the Ministry consider the proposal contained in my Budget speech to set a poverty line and measure the number of families, particularly, the number of children, who fall below this line every year so that we can measure how we are making an impact on the issue of poverty and transitioning people out of poverty? I note that some other countries do publish this data.

Secondly, on the quantum of financial assistance, how often is this reviewed? When will the next review be and do these reviews take into consideration new research, such as the study by Prof Teo You Yenn and Dr Ng Kok Hoe that I referred to?

Lastly, a narrow clarification. The Minister referred to our intergenerational social mobility being better than North America and Europe, if I heard him correctly. Could the Minister reference what is the study that demonstrates that? Because I am not aware of that.

Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: I will try to answer that in three minutes.

Firstly, the data that talks about social mobility. This came from a study. The source is Chetty et al, 2014, and the authors are from the US, UK, Denmark; and our own estimates are updated by the authors using administrative data. The US is about 7.5% for the share of individuals who reach the top income quintile among those born to the bottom quintile. So, 7.5% and that is North America. For the UK, it is about 9%; Europe, 11%. In Singapore, it is maintained at about 14%, especially for those that we have estimated for the 1985 to 1989 cohorts. This is published, as I mentioned, by Chetty et al, from the US, UK, Denmark, Canada; the authors are from these countries.

For the other issue on the publication by the academicians, particularly around what the Member called minimum income standards, this was responded to by MOF in October, giving its views about the minimum income standards. This was a study started in the United Kingdom in 2006. So, it is a relatively new approach in determining what are the benchmarks and standards to look at in alleviating poverty.

For this particular standard, the idea is to determine what incomes different household types require to reach a socially acceptable living standard. It has nothing to do with determining what low-income families should get.

As such, even the Singapore study reflects the processes and outcomes expected from the study by the UK condition and do not necessarily reflect the needs of the low-income households.

For example, the call for $1,600 monthly income for a single or partnered household includes private enrichment classes, jewellery, perfume and therefore, in no way reflects what should be, at least, the basic necessity that we should meet for needy income households.

Nonetheless, I will respect that this is an approach, a particular academic approach, and like the UK exercise, it should be seen as a reflection of what society aspires everyone to have for them, like what they want to have at least for themselves. Nonetheless, there are many other academic approaches to social spending. These include those around measuring outcomes on social mobility, like the publication I mentioned just now, as well as issues around social inclusion.

In Singapore, for example, we make sure social inclusion is something we work very hard on. Hawker centres are a very good example where the rich and poor dine together under a community hall and they do not feel rich, do not feel poor. In the same way too, community clubs, even our housing estates, are designed for that.

There are other studies which talk about how it should be done. For example, raising average incomes, building pathways for continuous improvement. These two studies that I have mentioned by the academics —

The Chairman: Minister, if you can wrap up, please.

Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: Yes. Put emphasis on personal responsibility, the role of the family and not just Government intervention. So, I hope that we do not get fixated by a publication, as popular as it is, but look at the broad literature and the outcomes that we have achieved so far.

The Chairman: Mr Seah Kian Peng, if you can withdraw your amendment, please?

Mr Seah Kian Peng: Chairman, I would first like to thank Minister Masagos Zulkifli, Minister Desmond Lee, Minister of State Sun Xueling and Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua for their responses to our cuts and also their subsequent responses to our clarifications.

Renewing and strengthening our social compact to build a fair and just Singapore require the work and support of all of us. Certainly, for those in the social sector, I think they are doing a lot of heavy lifting on this front. So, on behalf of all of us, inside and outside of this House, I want to express our sincere appreciation to all of them. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $3,773,507,000 for Head I ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $86,845,700 for Head I ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.