Sufficiency of Manpower at Child Protection Service
Ministry of Social and Family DevelopmentSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the sufficiency of manpower at the Child Protection Service and plans by the Ministry of Social and Family Development to increase officer headcount. Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang highlighted that officers currently manage an average of 40 cases and asked for specific recruitment targets and caseload benchmarks. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua replied that the Ministry is actively hiring to meet demand while addressing attrition and the intensive training required for the role. He acknowledged the current caseload is high and aims to reduce it below 40, though he noted that fixed targets are difficult to set given varying case complexities. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Eric Chua emphasized that recruitment standards will remain high to ensure the safety and proper protection of children and families.
Transcript
16 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) whether the Ministry considers there to be sufficient manpower at the Child Protection Service (CPS); and (b) whether there are plans to increase the number of CPS officers.
The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social and Family Development (Mr Eric Chua) (for the Minister for Social and Family Development): Sir, the number of Child Protection Officers (CPOs) managing cases has increased over the years, in line with the increase in cases managed by the Child Protective Service (CPS). CPS is in the process of hiring more CPOs to meet evolving needs.
Mr Speaker: Mr Ng.
Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Sir, I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the very short reply. I understand the caseload currently is at an average of 40 cases for each CPO, which is quite a lot, considering there are really difficult cases. So, could I ask whether Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) has an ideal number of cases for the caseload of a CPO?
Secondly, the Senior Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that they are planning to increase the numbers. Could I check what the target number of CPOs is?
Mr Eric Chua: Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for his supplementary questions. I appreciate and share the Member's concern.
I trust the Member would agree with me that, actually, the situation is a function of several factors, one of which is the number of CPOs retiring or leaving service prematurely; two, our ability to recruit more CPOs; and three, there is a lag in time due to the need for professional and proper training for our CPOs.
The challenges and complexities that our CPOs face in their daily work, I think that I do not have to say more and the nerve that the CPO actually needs to exhibit just to discharge his or her duty, I believe many Members of the House, members of the public and the Member Mr Louis Ng himself are able to appreciate. So, it is definitely not a job for the faint-hearted and it is not a job that all that many would readily take on, given the high level of dedication and a strong sense of mission that one needs to really show as a CPO.
So, we also do not want to just loosen our requirements just to make sure that we can make up the numbers because we want to enforce a higher standard so that our children and our families are properly protected.
So, I hope the Member does not misconstrue the situation as the Ministry being reticent to act. Quite the contrary; we are aware of the situation. We salute our CPOs, they are doing good work and we want to support them so that they have every chance to do their work well.
But given the compendium of the three factors that we are talking about, we are trying to ramp up recruitment and, at the same time, retain our officers. So, I am afraid I cannot commit to a very firm and hard target for the Member.
Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Ng. A short supplementary question, please.
Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang: A short supplementary question but that was a much longer reply though.
Again, I think there has to be some arbitrary number as to how many cases a CPO can take. This is actually a much larger number of caseload than for a social worker, for example. So, I hope we can set some benchmark in terms of the number of cases an officer can take and also have some target numbers in terms of the number of officers we need.
Mr Eric Chua: I can agree that 40 is perhaps a tad high. We are trying to go below 40. But for us to commit to a firm number is probably going to be quite hard because of the complexity and the different challenges faced in each case. So, how do you define 40 cases or 38 cases? And what do 38 cases comprise, if 38 is the magic number? Is it made up of 32 complex and six easy cases? Is it going to be six complex and 32 easy cases? It is not going to be a hard number that we can reach.
So, I hope the Member can see where I am coming from. I also think that 40 is a little bit too high. We are trying to bring that number for the caseload down, but I do not think we can arrive at a magic number.