Outreach and Support for People with Physical and Other Disabilities in Singapore

36 Ms Yip Pin Xiu asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what is the current total number of people with physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and those who are blind or deaf in Singapore; and (b) whether there has been consideration to share the particulars of this group of people, while maintaining a high level of privacy, to VWOs or organisations that can help with outreach and provide support to this targeted group of people.

Mr Desmond Lee: The prevalence rate of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in Singapore is as follows:

Persons with sensory (blindness and deafness) and physical disabilities constitute half of the disability group. The other half comprises those with Intellectual Disabilities, Autistic Spectrum Disorder and other types of disabilities.⁴

As part of efforts to better support PwDs, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) is working with the Department of Statistics (DOS) to include disability-related questions in the upcoming population census to be conducted in 2020. Data collected from the census will enable government agencies to better plan services and programmes for different groups of PwDs.

On the issue of data sharing, we will look into sharing appropriate data with voluntary welfare organisations and other help organisations when the census data is available. However, sharing of personal information with non-governmental organisations will require consent, so as to protect the privacy of individuals.