Safety Audits and Findings by SAF Inspector-General’s Office and Improvement Measures Implemented

The following question stood in the name of Mr Neil Parekh Nimil Rajnikant –

21 To ask the Minister for Defence (a) whether the Ministry can provide details on the safety audits and review processes that are regularly conducted by the SAF Inspector-General’s Office at training camps; (b) what are the common safety lapses that continue to occur during the SAF’s training and the reasons behind such occurrences and; (c) what steps have been put in place to ensure such lapses do not recur and the quality and standard of SAF’s training is not compromised.

Mr Keith Chua (Nominated Member): Question No 21, Sir.

The Senior Minister of State for Defence (Mr Heng Chee How) (for the Minister for Defence): Mr Speaker, each year the Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF's) Inspector General's Office (IGO) conducts between 40 and 50 physical audits and reviews of safety standards and practices involving SAF Formations and units. The safety policies, management system and culture, day-to-day practices, compliance to training safety instructions and attention of commanders to safety outcomes form part of these inspections. In addition, the IGO also looks into notable safety incidents and near misses to establish their root causes, to determine if there are safety lapses and recommend corrective actions where necessary.

In carrying out its work, the IGO also taps on external experts and review panels, including the External Review Panel on SAF Safety, which provides further independent reviews, benchmarking and recommendations on the SAF's safety management systems and practices.

While there have been no significant systemic weaknesses identified, the IGO recognises that the journey to zero accidents is a continuous one that requires constant effort to improve the safety culture for all units.

From time to time, particular attention is paid to strengthen safety in specific areas. For example, the current area of focus is to reduce vehicular incidents, as the SAF operates a large number and range of vehicles, ranging from jeeps, utility vehicles and trucks, as well as armoured vehicles such as tanks. The SAF has been strengthening its training regime. Vehicle operators are trained progressively, first qualifying to drive, before gaining experience and confidence to operate larger and more complex vehicles. Simulators and driving circuits are used to increase training hours and expand the range of training scenarios, including challenging and contingency situations. On our vehicular platforms, technologies such as vehicular proximity sensors and cameras have been adopted to reduce human judgement errors.

Most recently, technologies like driver monitoring systems to detect driver fatigue, as well as sensors and video analytics to spot unsafe driving practices and safety transgressions have also been deployed. From 2021 to 2023, vehicle incident rate in the SAF decreased from 3.04 per 100,000 kilometres driven in the work year 2021, to 2.54 in work year 2023.

Another area of attention is heat injuries, given our rising ambient temperatures. The SAF has raised awareness of units, commanders and servicemen on the importance of heat acclimatisation and early identification of heat injury symptoms. More wet bulb globe temperature sensors have been installed in camps and training areas to provide real-time environmental heat measure for better work rest cycle decisions. In 2023, the SAF partnered the National University of Singapore and the DSO National Laboratories to establish the Heat Resilience and Performance Centre to conduct research and development on soldier heat resilience and adaptation. Between 2021 and 2023, the annual number of heat strokes and heat exhaustion injuries has fallen from seven to two, with no heat strokes during that period.