Childcare Centres at Places of Employment

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) how many places of employment provide childcare centres on their premises currently; and (b) whether the Ministry will consider encouraging companies of a certain staff size to provide onsite childcare facilities for their employees.

Mr Speaker, as of June this year, there are about 470 workplace childcare centres located in commercial premises, Government buildings, industrial estates and other places of work. These centres make up about a third of all childcare centres in Singapore.

Many factors, aside from just staff size, determine whether an employer would consider setting up a childcare centre at the workplace. These include the profile of employees, the employees' preferences in the location of childcare services, the location of the workplace and business viability of the centre. Employers would want to take all these factors into consideration.

To facilitate and encourage developers and employers to set up workplace childcare centres, we have put in place various measures and schemes.

The Community and Sports Facilities Scheme, for instance, provides bonus gross floor area to developers who set aside space in commercial buildings for childcare centres. Another is the Enhanced Workplace Childcare Centre Scheme, where eligible workplace centres may receive a furnishing and equipment grant as well as a development grant to cover the costs of converting space in workplaces for childcare use. In addition, for new commercial developments, the Early Childhood Development Agency has worked with the Urban Redevelopment Authority to require the developer for selected Government Land Sale sites to provide space for childcare centres.

While the Government supports the setting up of workplace childcare centres, we note that many parents would still prefer childcare centres near their homes as well. As such, the Government will continue to ramp up the number of childcare places island-wide, mostly at new Housing and Development Board residential developments. Parents can look forward to over 40,000 new full-day preschool places by 2022.