The Minister in charge of Singapore’s Public Service says the Service must rise to the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chan Chun Sing (pictured) said officers would need to be flexible and gain exposure to diverse experiences, even beyond the public sector, to respond to uncertainties and outliers.
Speaking during the One Public Service Observance Ceremony, held virtually for the first time, Mr Chan said the Public Service would also need to adapt its systems for assessing officers.
Noting agitation to update the Currently Estimated Potential (CEP) system, Mr Chan said: “It cannot be, as some of you jokingly call it, the Career Ending Point system, as if your fate is predetermined and unchanging. Instead, we must have a system of continuous meritocracy.”
He told the more than 9,200 officers attending the ceremony online that the career roadmap for public officers should be for the next three-to-five years, not the next 30 years.
“We will also update how we assess high potential. To show leadership potential, we must not only be able to make sound policies, we must be able to implement well, innovate, work in teams, communicate effectively, and mobilise relevant stakeholders for collective action,” Mr Chan said.
“It is not easy or realistic to find and develop all these attributes in one single individual,” he said.
“This is also why we will be paying greater attention on the formation of leadership teams in Ministries and Agencies.”
Mr Chan said senior officers should gain exposure to policy, operations and communications or mobilisation work, and they should also have stints outside the Public Service, in the people and private sectors or overseas.
“The world is becoming more complex,” he said.
“We cannot expect to know everything if we do not venture out, we cannot preach agility when we do not practice it,” Mr Chan said.
The One Public Service Observance Ceremony is part of the annual Public Service Week, which has been held since 2008 to celebrate and recognise the work done by Government officers.
Singapore, 18 October 2020
