Committee of Supply – Head I (Ministry of Social and Family Development)

Mdm Chairperson, let me first thank all Members who have spoken up and shared their ideas and suggestions for a better Singapore – a more caring and inclusive Singapore.

When we talk about Singapore, I think we all understand, and we all accept, that we are not just talking about economics. We also want a better Singapore in terms of our social cohesion. Economics and social cohesion are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing.

We are a young nation, barely 50 years old. Over the last 50-odd years, we have been fortunate to have strong economic growth. It has bought us time to build our social cohesion and our sense of national identity. We hope that this sense of social cohesion and national identity will carry us through in the coming years where our economic growth may be slower and our resources may be less plentiful. But regardless of how fast or how slow we grow, we hope that all Singaporeans will join our hands and join our hearts together, to care for those who are less fortunate amongst us.

Our ability to share is not a function of economic growth, nor GDP. Much has been spoken about the Happiness Index in the past year. I hope we do not quantify more things, to try to make ourselves happy. I also hope that we do

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not try to quantify the intangibles that really bring meaning to life. Instead, I hope happiness can be defined not by just what we have, but by what we can share.

Last year, during the Committee of Supply (COS), I shared with Members of this House the three fundamental beliefs of MSF – Hope, Heart and Home. This has not changed. Hope is about our ability to give a helping hand to those who are less fortunate amongst us. Sometimes, it is through no fault of theirs because life has thrown them a tough lot. We have to see how we can take care of them. Hope is about why this Government will continue to invest much more on the development of our children. Because as we have all said, we may be poor in this generation but we must do our best to give hope to the next, so that our children, and their future generation will have the best chance to move forward in life and identify themselves with this land where we call our home.

Heart is about caring for the needy, the vulnerable, and the disadvantaged. There will always be some amongst us who will be needy, who will be disadvantaged and who will be vulnerable. It is incumbent upon us – those of us who are more successful – to try to reach out to these people. That perhaps is key to our happiness as individuals, as a community and as a country.

Our home, our family, is the bedrock of our society's success. Our family is the source of our hope, our source of comfort when we are down. Our family is our anchor to our lives' direction. Our family also provides purpose for all our efforts in all that we do in our busy lives. So, I hope that all of us in this House and beyond will share with MSF this simple message: that we must continue to build on the Hope, Heart and Home theme for ourselves.

Let me talk about MSF's priorities to enhance social services and the social safety net for 2013. We have three priorities and all revolve around the implementation of our policies. First, we endeavour to provide more flexible and tailored assistance. This means that for those who need more, we should agree as a society that we will provide them with more. I hope Members of this House and fellow Singaporeans will agree with me that the best way to help those in need, with our finite pool of resources, is to provide more for those who need them most rather than an universal scheme to help everyone equally. I hope Members of this House and fellow Singaporeans will also agree with us and not feel aggrieved because someone else has gotten more help than what we may have gotten. This speaks about the soul of our nation. This speaks about how inclusive we want to be.

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The second priority for MSF this year is to provide more accessible and integrated care to better serve our people who are in need. We want to customise the solutions for them according to their needs and localities.

And the third priority for MSF this year is to build up a stronger social service sector. There are four areas: how we organise ourselves; how we develop our people; how we increase productivity, and how we enlarge the circle of support which includes the community, private companies, and the private sector.

Let me touch on the first priority which has to do with a flexible and tailored approach. I will start with ComCare. We are all aware that ComCare provides temporary assistance to many of those who are in need as well as many of those who have fallen upon hard times. A typical ComCare scheme, in terms of duration, can range from a couple of months to a year, but we are aware that there will be some people, especially those with medical as well as complex family issues, that may require help that goes beyond a year. We are prepared to extend assistance to ComCare recipients beyond one year. That is the easy part which is to allow the flexibility in policy.

In fact, we have flexibility in policy today; what we need the most are people on the ground – social assistance officers on the ground – who can, who are willing and who are prepared to make the judgement to extend assistance to those who need it for a longer period. We need social assistance officers, community leaders and my fellow Members of Parliament to assist us with this endeavour. A policy is of no use unless it can be executed well on the ground. I call upon my fellow Members of Parliament, social assistance officers, and grassroots leaders to help us make that judgement. We have the framework in place, and let us make use of that.

Two weeks ago, I announced the change in the Public Assistance (PA) scheme for our needy and vulnerable. We now have a scheme that is more flexible and is not a one-size-fits-all scheme. We have a basic tier that will cover food, transport, medical and housing benefits.

But we will also have an additional tier. The additional tier will cover some of the medical essentials like health supplements, adult diapers which some will need. On top of that, we have a discretionary tier for one-off essentials like commodes.

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Dr Lily Neo asked about how we will implement this system. I would like to share with Dr Lily Neo that the people on the PA scheme do not just get the public assistance. Our Social Assistance Officers and grassroots volunteers will visit them regularly to review their cases . This goes beyond just financial assistance. We will work with partners, such as the VWOs and hospitals, to deliver assistance to them. We are well aware that many of our elderly do not know where to go to seek help and we should not need them to because we have enough people – Social Assistance Officers, grassroots volunteers and grassroots leaders – to reach out and know who needs a bit more help.

When I announced the changes in the PA scheme two weeks back, I visited Mr Anthony Chou. When news broke that Mr Anthony Chou did not have a bed, he received many offers for beds and furnishings for his house. And now we are in the process of getting this help to Mr Anthony Chou and we will channel any extras to the other PA recipients. Mr Anthony Chou has a simple desire – he likes to eat fish. And we have received many offers of assistance. This speaks about the spirit of fellow Singaporeans who I believe are generous in spirit and kind in heart. And with that, I am confident that beyond the scheme, we can deliver help to those who need it most.

We will continue to adopt the same flexible approach when we review our other schemes as Dr Lily Neo has suggested.

Now, we know that ComCare provides short-term help, and we know that PA scheme provides long-term help. Going forward, we are concerned about another group of people. These are the people who require help beyond one to two years, but who may not need permanent help. They may require help for a period of five to 10 years because their problems are complex. Their problems are not just financial. Some of them might have parents who are incarcerated, some of them might have children with learning disabilities, some of them might have long-term health issues and others might have complex family issues. We are reviewing the schemes to see how best we can pilot a scheme to handhold these people out of the circumstances that they are in.

This is not easy. It requires very intense casework, but we are going to give it our best shot as these issues go beyond pure monetary assistance. If the issue is money, it would be relatively easy. We could find the money and help them. But what these people need most goes beyond money. They need mentors; they need people to handhold them, to walk the journey together with them. Along the way, many of them will stumble and they will need pick themselves up again. But we hope that the mentors will continue to stick around and walk

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the journey with them.

The most important thing for this group of people is for us as a community and as a nation to muster a group of volunteers and mentors, to come forward to walk this journey with them, so that their children will have a better future in times to come.

Yesterday, Mr Laurence Lien spoke about helping the poor. I just want to reassure Mr Lien and Members of this House that all social workers and all social service professionals try their very best to provide a holistic package of help for those in need. Many of them go beyond the call of duty, looking beyond financial issues to childcare issues, medical issues, employment issues and so forth.

And I want to give credit to this group of social service professionals who are constantly on the go, reaching out to people and seeking out those who need help. I think we will do them a disservice if we suggest that they have somehow not tried to provide holistic help. Or that they have somehow taken away the dignity of the people they are helping. That cannot be further away from the truth.

Our job is to provide dignity and the hope to the families in need. Our job is to build on their strengths, so that they stand tall again. And maybe even lend a helping hand to the next generation. So, I would like to thank all my social service professionals who have done so much quietly behind the scene to reach out to them.

Having said that, certainly we can do more and if there are suggestions which Mr Laurence Lien has for us to do better, we will certainly work with him to do even better for the sake of our fellow Singaporeans.

Now, I come to the second priority for MSF this year. As Mr Alex Yam, Mr Seah Kian Peng, Mr Desmond Lee and Ms Low Yen Ling have spoken about, delivery is the key. Delivery is as important as policy. We want to be closer to the clients, we want to meet local needs, and we want to provide our clients with coordinated and integrated care. We have been heading in that direction but we are not there yet.

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We will continue to move in that direction. This year, we will roll out 20 Social Service Offices from the third quarter. It will take us two to three years to lay the groundwork across the entire country.

Many years back, when we were called "fook lei bo" or 福利部 in Cantonese as many people would remember, the people seeking help would have to walk up a hill at Thomson to seek help. That is where our current MSF building is located.

Over time, we have decentralised the assistance offices to the five Community Development Councils (CDCs). This has enabled to reach out to those in need. Building on that foundation, we are going to push out our offices even more. This is why we are rolling out the 20 offices across the entire nation.

We will build one in each town and, if needed, we will build one more for the new towns. People do not need to travel long distances to get help. The elderly and persons with disability will not need to spend $20 on taxi fares just to go and collect a cheque.

But the Social Service Office is not just about giving out the financial assistance. We also want the Social Service Offices to be able to play a role in integrating social service delivery in their respective towns. For example, in Toa Payoh Town, there are more than 20 facilities run by Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs) providing different services. We need the 20 different facilities to come together to coordinate their services, share their expertise, and knowledge and to also share some of the backend support to better deliver services to those living in Toa Payoh.

This is exactly what we will do and this was suggested by Mr Desmond Lee yesterday. The Social Service Offices will play a local coordinating role. We want to simplify the working relationships at the ground level and we would like to reassure Mr Faisal Manap that this is to simplify the work rather than to add to bureaucracy. We will never do that, because if we do, it will be an injustice to the people that we serve.

So, for this year, besides converting the social assistance units at the five CDCs, we will be building four new ones. The first two will be at Kreta Ayer and Jalan Besar. The next one will be at Jurong West and another one to serve both Bukit Panjang and Choa Chu Kang.

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Members may ask: how were these locations decided? We decided based on the caseload, the demographic profile of the population and the needs of the community. But rest assured, progressively we will work the Grassroots Advisers and the local community leaders to roll out these offices as fast as we can. We seek Members' assistance – help us identify the suitable locations to set up these offices, so that we can deliver better and more integrated services to our clients as soon as we can.

Yesterday, MOH has announced that the Agency for Integrated Care will take care of all eldercare issues. MSF will continue to oversee the network of Senior Activity Centres to provide social support for our elderly. We will also position the current Centre for Enabled Living into a focal point for disability services, which I will elaborate on later.

Now, I come to the third priority of how we intend to build a stronger social service sector. I start with our structure and organisations. Today, we have a varied landscape across the entire VWO sector. There are some small ones providing specialised and niche services. They are very personal in their approach – they know their clients well and serve niche needs. But they have their own challenges. Because they are small, it is hard for them to raise funds, it is hard for them to attract people to come and join them. Because many social service professionals have fed back to us that beyond helping the poor, they would also like to see some professional development, personal development and opportunities to upgrade themselves. We can understand and appreciate this.

On the other hand, we have some VWOs that are very big. They benefit from economies of scale when it comes to acquisitions providing career development opportunities. But their challenge is to maintain the same level of personalised services to their clients. So, we need to find a way to marry the best of both worlds. We want the personalised services at the front-end and the economies of scale at the back-end to stretch each and every dollar that we are given. We want back end integration to develop the social service professionals in the sector – to give them a sense of fulfilment, and a sense of career development and professional development.

Our challenge is to find a way to have our cake and eat it. So, what we are going to do is to develop some bigger VWOs that can provide the anchor in providing services to the local community. At the same time, we can network them in a hub-and-spoke model with some of the smaller niche VWOs providing niche services in the same locality. In that way, they can share critical resources at the backend – from IT systems to knowledge of the clients, to administration

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and even human resource (HR).

We have made some progress in this area. For example, many VWOs share critical therapy services, like the physiotherapist or occupational therapist. These are scarce resources, and not every VWO can employ a physiotherapist or occupational therapist by themselves. They probably may not need the service for the whole day as well. But if we can aggregate the demand, we can actually provide better services to the clients. At the same time, we can also make sure that our social service professionals have a more meaningful and challenging career.

In terms of HR, we will continue to step up the pace of developing our social service professionals. I am happy to say that with our outreach efforts, we have seen about 300 applications per year in the last two years for the Professional Conversion Programme. These are the people who join the sector after a mid-career switch. We are encouraged by this. The 300 applicants will allow us to have a wider pool of people to reach out to those in need. It will also allow us to have a new source of energy to look at the blind spots in the sector. We will continue to make sure that we develop career opportunities for the social service professionals to do justice to their work.

We are rethinking some of the employment schemes that we want to roll out in the next year. For example, how we can provide better terms of employment to the social service professionals centrally, and yet allow them to be assigned to the different VWOs. That could allow us to have some cross-fertilisation of ideas across different VWOs as well. We will also continue to review and benchmark the pay in this sector so that we keep pace with the competitive economy that we are in.

When it comes to training, we will focus this year on the training of the Social Assistance Officers who will be deployed to the 20 Social Service Offices island-wide. They will very often be the first point of contact and must know where to refer the various complex cases to. They must know and establish the contacts with other agencies beyond those under MSF. If we want to deliver holistic help to the people in need, then we will have to take into account the housing, financial, education, health and socio-emotional needs. And this requires us to come together and work across different agencies.

We do not want a case whereby a person in need goes to an agency and fails to meet the criteria just by a bit. At each and every agency they go to, they just fail the criteria by a bit. Taken as a whole, someone must be able to say that,

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"Well, this person does deserve our help". This is what we seek to do with the Social Assistance Officers deployed at the various Social Service Offices.

We will also do our part to increase our productivity. It is not easy. All the work that MSF does is very personalised – we have to care for each elderly, each disabled child, one at a time. But we will try to see where we can improve productivity.

We have identified IT as one critical area which we must invest in. I talked about this last year. We are well into the work to develop an integrated IT system for the social service sector. This will cut down on the administration load for our social workers and social service professionals. This will allow us to focus their time doing the front-end work to touch the lives of the people that they are helping. At the same time, this will help us to avoid the situation whereby when a person moves from Bedok to Jurong, and has to repeat the whole case again. This is akin to the National Electronic Health Records system that we have. But it will take us some time to build that system. We will have to put in place the necessary security and confidentiality safeguards to make sure that we do not compromise sensitive information on the individual and his family.

There are other sources of productivity gain that we are constantly on the lookout for. One small example is the way we pack medicine in the Homes. Today, if Members have visited many of our elderly homes, you will know that we have to almost employ one person full time just to pack medicine, three times a day – the correct pills and the correct dosage for the correct elderly person. It is very tedious and prone to mistakes. But we have seen good ideas from MOH where they have automated the whole process through quite an expensive machine. We might not be able to afford that for every VWO, but we certainly can try to work with MOH to leverage on that machine to do some of this packing. That will free up more manpower for us to do the frontline work. So, if Members have any other ideas, please let us know and we will try our very best.

Last but not least, when it comes to building a strong social service sector, we need to widen and strengthen the circle of support. Who is our circle of support? They are the volunteers, the corporate partners, the private individuals who can come in and join us in our endeavours. We admit we must do better in terms of volunteer management. Many of our VWOs are very small. They do

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not necessarily have the capacity to manage their volunteers well. It becomes a vicious cycle. If we manage the volunteers well, word-of-mouth will spread and more volunteers will come. If we do not manage the volunteers well, people become cynical and we narrow our circle of support. So, we will endeavour to do better.

When it comes to SEs, I would like to thank Miss Penny Low for championing this effort all these years. Last year, we launched an inaugural President's Social Enterprise Award. We had a good response and we hope to do even better this year.

We also have the ComCare Enterprise Fund that supported more than 90 projects since 2003, and we want to continue improving the collaboration amongst the different SEs. We can do it over web portal facilities, or we can do it through other means. But we understand that the SE landscape is a diverse one. We know that they have different missions, different outlooks, and different needs, but we will be happy to share ideas and listen to Miss Penny Low's ideas on how we can do even better. Indeed, this is something we want to encourage going forward, that people do not just do business for the sake of money, but people can also do business – viable business – with a sense of social mission; and that, perhaps, will add to the fabric of our nation to make us a more inclusive and caring nation.

When it comes to corporates, I would like to encourage corporate partners to step forward to work with the many VWOs by focusing and leveraging on their respective strengths. Many corporates today do a lot of good work with many VWOs and charities. Sometimes, they go to the homes to put up performances to cheer the elderly and, sometimes, they help to clean the homes. These are all worthy causes, but I would like to appeal to the corporate partners to leverage even more on their respective strengths. For example, the accountants can come together to provide pro bono accountancy services to the many VWOs that need them. The lawyers can come forward and provide legal advice and legal support to all these VWOs, especially the smaller ones. Even the media professionals can come forward to help by pitching in to spread the word and make known to the rest of the community the good work that is being done by all these VWOs.

We need many, many more corporate partners in these specialised niche areas. Then we can leverage and harness the energy of the entire nation for us to do better – so that not everyone will just go to an old folks' home and help clean up the old folks' home or put up a performance there. Each and every one of us has our respective strengths, and I think each and every one of us can use

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that strength meaningfully to develop a stronger social service sector. So, I look forward to working closely with many corporate partners to serve our local community.

Ms Denise Phua, Mr Seah Kian Peng and Ms Low Yen Ling asked for an update on the Enabling Masterplan.

Let me just recap the vision of our Enabling Masterplan 2012 that was developed last year.

Our vision is for Singapore "to be an inclusive society where persons with disabilities are fully integrated, empowered to reach their potential, and become contributing members of our society". We adopt a life-course approach from early pre-school years to education, and employment into the adult and ageing years.

The Enabling Masterplan lays the foundation for progressive realisation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We are happy that we signed the Convention last year. It is being deposited and will be ratified very soon this year.

We will reposition the Centre for Enabled Living to implement many of the Enabling Masterplan initiatives, including enhancing the information and referral services, expanding the early childhood intervention programmes, enhancing employability and employment options and improving the transition management across life stages. The last one is most important.

Ms Denise Phua asked about the implementation system. We have set up an Enabling Masterplan Implementation Committee. And for the moment, I will personally chair the Implementation Committee. So, we are on track.

Last year, we expended close to $180 million to support persons with disabilities. This includes the Development Support Programme for children with mild developmental delays. Three hundred of them have benefited from the pilot, and we will expand the programme. MOE and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) have also continued to raise their funding for the Special Education schools.

When it comes to employment, 3,200 persons with disabilities have benefited from the Workfare Income Supplement scheme, and 2,000 employers have benefited from the Special Employment Credit scheme respectively. I think

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we can go further. And I will encourage employers and the community to help us.

When it comes to transport and accessibility, we know that the fleet of London cabs would have expired last year. We gave them a one-year extension. Last week, you may have read in the newspaper that we have brought in a new fleet of 15 taxis that are able to take the high-back wheelchairs and the motorised wheelchairs. Not only that, in the second half of this year, we will bring in another 15. This will bring the entire fleet up to 30 taxis – three times of the original 10 that we had in the past with the London cabs. We will spend about $3.1 million and work with SMRT to bring in these new taxis.

On top of bringing in new taxis to improve accessibility for persons with disability, in the second half of this year, we will also invite commercial and VWO operators to pilot a dedicated fleet for persons with disabilities. So, indeed, we want to do more and better.

Now I come to adults with disabilities, including those with Down syndrome that Mr Png Eng Huat spoke about yesterday. This is a serious challenge for us. In the past, many of the persons with disabilities or those with special needs passed on before their primary caregiver. Today, with better medical care and better support, many of them are outliving their primary caregivers. We need to find solutions to take care of them, after the passing of their primary caregivers.

Many of the primary caregivers are also worried about how to provide for them financially once they pass on. Many have come to see me at my Meet-the-People sessions to see what they can do. They may not be in need today, but they are very worried about what will happen to their adult disabled child after they pass on. Or if something untoward were to happen to them.

We know that the Central Provident Fund runs the Special Needs Savings Scheme. Many people have benefited, but I think more can come onto the scheme. We also have the Special Needs Trust Company (SNTC), and we need to go out and let more people know about it. So that parents can set aside some money to help take care of their children after they pass on.

And MOH had recently extended the MediShield to congenital and neonatal conditions. So, these are small steps that we have taken. And I think, we want to do more for these people.

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We will also provide a wider range of care options for adults with disabilities. We currently have 830 places in Adult Disability Homes. By 2030, we will increase this by four times, to 3,200 places. As our population ages, the number of adult disabled persons seeking care options will not grow linearly. They will grow almost exponentially, because the amount of care in the final years is especially tough.

For the Day Activity Centre, we will increase the existing 950 places by about 50% to about 1,500 places by 2020. We will also pilot Drop-in Disability programmes at four sites this year. These are programmes for those with milder needs to allow them to be socially engaged in the community. At the same time, their families may also get some respite to go and work, or to take a break.

We will see how we can do this best in the community so that the people do not have to travel long distances, yet have accessible services within the community. All these will be overseen by the Enabling Masterplan Implementation Committee, which will continue the work that we have done in the private, public and people sectors.

Ms Ellen Lee asked about support for the vulnerable elderly. We share her concern. It is a serious challenge, as the number of elderly will grow very quickly. The issues are complex. They go beyond money and are about social, medical, emotional support and so forth.

We have the Mental Capacity Act and the Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). The take-up has mirrored that of other countries in the initial years. We have not reached the take-off stage whereby we see a rapid rise in LPA applications.

In our conversations with potential LPA clients, they told us that it is not easy for them to access the LPA because some of them do not understand it. Some of them are inhibited by their culture, while some of them do not know they can assign decision-making powers via the LPA in the event of mental incapacity. So, these are all challenges that we need to overcome before we reach the take-off stage like some other countries where there is a rapid increase in the number of people signing up for the LPA.

We do encourage people to come and sign up for this because by the time we think that we need it, it would probably be too late. By then, we may not be in a position to make those decisions for ourselves. We agree with Ms Ellen Lee that we need to do more. We need Members' help to do the outreach and to explain to elderly residents – or for that matter, not even the elderly – all

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residents, to your residents, even when they are young, to sign the LPA so that they can have peace of mind before anything untoward happens to them.

We also need the lawyers to help because, as what Ms Ellen Lee said, sometimes, the lawyers charge fees. But I have also seen many lawyers who do this pro bono. We would like to thank the lawyers who have come forward to patiently explain – not just in English, but in Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew – to the elderly what the LPA is all about; and who have helped the elderly overcome some of the mental hurdles that hinder them from applying for an LPA.

Having said that, I have asked my staff to see how we can continue to simplify processes to help individuals make the decision while respecting the sanctity of the law. This is not easy. Today, there may be many pages to fill up for an LPA, because the legal requirements require us to do that. But we will see how we can simplify the process and yet preserve the sanctity of the legal document.

Dr Lily Neo and Ms Low Yen Ling also talked about support for the vulnerable elderly. I would like to share with Dr Lily Neo that we will have close to 120 Senior Activity Centres in the HDB rental and Studio Apartment developments that engage the elderly in meaningful activities. We will be prepared to expand this number, if need be. As long as there is a need, we will try our best to work with a VWO to provide that service to the community.

Some of our elderly are also at risk of social isolation or depression. We will equip 30 of these Senior Activity Centres with social work capabilities to provide targeted case management, coordination and monitoring services.

We will also look at expanding our Senior Group Homes with assisted living options for seniors who can benefit from mutual support. I visited one such home a couple of weeks ago. These Homes provide quite good living options for the elderly and we do not have to uproot them from the community that they are living in and place them in an institutional home. If they can mutually support each other within the same community, we can let them live in the Senior Group Home so that they can take care of each other. I think many of the elderly have shared that, when they help to take care of each other, they actually feel a sense of purpose, a sense of mission; and this actually helps them in their daily life. This is what we want to encourage.

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We will increase the number of Senior Group Homes from the existing two pilots to 60, with a total capacity of 700 elderly by 2016. If there is a demand and support for this, we will continue to do more.

This is where I again appeal to Members to help us because we need to identify the sites, and we need the community to accept that these Senior Group Homes will be located within the community. We need to encourage those more able within the community to come forward and play a part so that we can work together to take care of the elderly amongst us.

Finally, Mr Alex Yam asked about youths-at-risk. Yes, we agree with the Member that every Singaporean counts. We must do our utmost to make sure that every Singaporean youth, especially those at risk, those who are in the vulnerable circumstances, are taken care of. We will continue to strengthen our aftercare services after the intervention programme. It is not just about having an intervention programme at the Boys' Home or Girls' Home, but it is also about the programmes that we need to put in place after they leave the Home to make sure that they continue onward in their journey to recovery and rehabilitation.

We will strengthen our job placement and the search for youth mentors. Again, I want to emphasise this point on the youth mentors. These are critical. It is not just about the programme. It is about the individual who can come forward, befriend the person, hand hold the person and walk with him through the tough journey. This is where we are most in need of volunteers.

We will set up a V hub at the *SCAPE by November this year, so that youths can have readily accessible services but, at the same time, the V hub at the *SCAPE is also our channel to reach out to other youths to come forward to serve, to befriend and to partner some of the youths-at-risk, so that they can walk this journey together. We will also pilot the three-year Youth Guidance and Support Service programme to make sure that we have the continuum of service that Mr Alex Yam talked about.

I would just like to emphasise this point. Beyond programmes, beyond all structures and organisations, what we need most for the youths-at-risk are two things. First, we need mentors. Mentors who can empathise with the youths. Mentors who can share the kind of feelings and frustrations that these youths go through, hand hold them and guide them through. So, the first thing we need are mentors. That, I think, we can find.

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The second important thing that we need is for the community to give these youths a second chance, for us to accept them as equal members of our society, so that when they look for jobs, when they try to start life afresh, that we will not look at them with strange eyes and not accept them. We need to do what we can as a community to help these youths walk on the correct path, and I have to have Members' support on all these initiatives.

At this juncture, may I invite Mr Heng Chee How to share with the House on the active ageing initiatives before I come back on a second round to share with Members of the House the initiatives for the family.

Mdm Chair, I declare my interest as a Board Member of Centre for Fathering and also the Co-Chair for National Family Celebrations. The Government recently announced enhancements to the marriage and parenthood package, and also for child and infant care subsidies. These indicate the Government's commitment towards supporting families in creating a pro-family environment.

However, developing a family mindset is not just about material incentives. It is also about equipping people with the right skills, values, and attitudes to enhance the quality of their family life, and to reinforce a pro-family culture. In short, the moral or normative incentives.

This, of course, is a far more difficult task because it involves changing the mindset and, frankly, I prefer to change my own mind than have the Government do it for me.

So, I am heartened by Prime Minister Lee's concurrence that beyond financial incentives, fostering a pro-family social environment and reaffirming Singaporean's attitudes towards having children is important as well. I would like to encourage MSF to further invest and embark on creating a pro-family climate and movement across the island – be it at work, schools or communities as we help Singaporeans pursue a more positive family life.

I would like to ask what else the Ministry intends to do to reinforce the role of the family, to develop a pro-family mindset and across different age groups. Institutions, such as schools and the workplace, can play to reinforce the role of the family. How can the Government support them?

I understand in 2007, the Government offered up to $20,000 grants to firms that embarked on pro-family projects, with 20% of the money disbursed upon approval and the remaining sum disbursed upon completion of the project and the firm attaining the Pro-Family Business Mark. I would like to ask for an update on the situation now, whether such measures are still being considered or in the pipeline, and how many companies and even schools are working towards a pro-family culture.

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In addition, I wish to ask how we can build the capabilities of the family education and promotion industry, to assist efforts to promote pro-family mindsets. How can MSF, specifically the Family Education and Promotion Division, do more to support employers' efforts to promote a pro-family culture, beyond just funding? Can the Ministry also work with other partners to provide family education and promotion?

Finally, to encourage Singaporeans to form families, we also invest even more in singles' programmes and be generous in helping businesses and organisations plan such activities.

For example, recently, during Valentine's Day, places like Mambo Cafe and Club Lava at CHIJMES held parties for singles to mingle. Beyond such one-off events, could we encourage more of such gatherings and also a wider range of businesses to plan similar parties or meet-ups?

Life events, such as falling in love, being a father, turning out to be a failure or a success – all these are a matter of luck and chance, as well as human endeavour. After all that we do, these cold blooded policies may cause nothing to change, but we never know unless we try. So try we must.

Mr Gan Thiam Poh (Pasir Ris-Punggol) (In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] It was announced in the Budget that the Government will bring in more anchor operators in the childcare sector, up from the current two. I would like to ask the Acting Minister whether the Government intends to invite

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non-profit sector groups, such as religious organisations and clan associations, to participate and how the Government intends to ensure that the childcare operators will pass on the savings from the disbursement of grant to subsidised residents and families.

Madam, I have three points for the Minister's response. One, is to say "no" to private anchor operators. Madam, as a board member of two anchor operators – My First Campus and PCF Kindergarten in my ward – I have seen how not-for-profit pre-school organisations are able to focus on the core business of delivering childcare and kindergarten services without having to focus disproportionately on maximising the financial returns to its owners, as expected of private operators. The public-listed Australian ABC Learning, for instance, driven by bottom line and aggressive expansion, failed and fell into receivership in 2009, I believe. To ensure that the many children served by ABC Learning had a centre to attend, the Australian federal government injected more than A$20 million. ABC Learning was later bought by a partnership of non-profit organisations.

In recent years in Singapore, global organisations, such as Knowledge Universe, have acquired well-known pre-schools such as Pat's Schoolhouse and Learning Vision. Local operators, such as Cherie Hearts, had also embarked on ambitious acquisition plans. There is always a risk that ambitious private operators which occupy a large footprint of the pre-school sector can land up in the same fate as ABC Learning, affecting the lives of many pre-schoolers and their families. The purpose of Anchor Operators is to recognise that pre-schools are a public good and a tool of social mobility for the majority to ensure as many children as possible start at nearly the same starting point. I therefore seek the Minister's assurance that the public funds intended for pre-school anchor operators will not end up with for-profit operators.

Two, human resource. Good teachers are the key to a quality pre-school sector. The demand for teachers in the pre-schools is challenged by a similar demand for teachers in MOE and the rest of the private education sector. Despite Government's efforts, the feedback from the sector is that the compensation package of these teachers in this sector remain uncompetitive, compared to educators in the other sectors. I urge the Minister to study carefully and address this root cause or the industry will continue to face staffing shortage due to its lack of appeal to potential applicants.

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Three, on future pre-school landscape. In an age of declining birth rates in Singapore, Madam, every child is a precious resource.

The setting up of the Early Childhood Development Agency by MOE and MSF and for MOE to start several pre-schools to drive improvements across the whole sector; are great moves. I am keen to find out from the Minister:

(a) if the Minister will consider granting childcare subsidies to (i) single mothers and (ii) stay-at-home mothers who have to look after children specially – since every Singaporean child is so precious;

(b) who these pre-schools and the pilot pre-schools by MOE will specifically serve;

(c) what financial resources will be allocated to these pilot centres;

(d) what the Government intends do when these pre-schools are successfully done; and

(e) is there a possibility that the Government will seriously consider to take over the operation of the entire pre-school sector and run it as though it was running mainstream Primary schools?

Mdm Chair, childcare is one of the biggest concerns of parents with young children. Many still face long waiting lists when registering their children and may end up having to settle for more expensive centres situated further from their homes. For this reason, I am looking forward to the 200 new childcare centres that are in the pipeline over the next five years.

While a lot of focus is on childcare – and rightly so – the Government also needs to invest more resources into improving the supply, accessibility, affordability and quality of student care. Childcare needs do not suddenly change when a child enters Primary 1. Parents still need to work as a child is still unable to care for himself. Student care should be seen as a natural extension of childcare. This will help both parents to remain in the workforce and reduce the demand on foreign maids, while providing a safe and nurturing

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environment for the children.

I would like to suggest that student care be brought under purview of the Early Childhood Development Agency so that the Government can better regulate and promote the sector. I welcome the Government's move to increase the number of school-based student care centres. However, student care centres (SCCs) should not only be set up within schools as parents with children attending different schools would have to rush to multiple locations to pick up their kids after work, before the 7.00 pm closing time. Some of the new SCCs should be located in housing estates and near MRT stations to make them more accessible.

The Government should also provide subsidies for student care, in addition to the ComCare's fee assistance for the low-income, just like it does for childcare, as this will ease the financial burdens on many middle-income Singaporeans.

Ms Lee Li Lian ( Punggol East): Madam, childcare is an integral part of a couple's plan for raising their children. More often than not, for families where both parents are working, the cost and availability of quality childcare facilities are top concerns. As anchor operators, the PAP Community Foundation and the NTUC My First Skool, receive heavy setup and operating grant, and in the process, prevent fair competition in the childcare market. This will gradually reduce the choices and viable options for parents.

My fellow Workers' Party's colleague, Mr Yee Jenn Jong, suggested making childcare services available to all Singaporeans as a public good. In response, the Minister for Social and Family Development, Mr Chan Chun Sing, stated that the scheme is currently under review and the implementation committee for enhancing pre-school education will be announcing the details

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in due course.

Many parents in my ward of Punggol East will be anxiously waiting for the outcome of this review. There are insufficient childcare facilities in Punggol East to meet the demand of the ward. A look at the number of vacancies at each centre as well as the estimated waiting time would be a good determinant of whether there are enough childcare facilities available on the ground. Considering that Punggol East has a relatively younger population as compared to more mature estates, the demand for childcare facilities will consequently be higher.

Madam, the demand for childcare facilities in Punggol East will only continue to increase with the increase in houses in the vicinity and, hopefully, with more young couples encouraged by recent moves to have more children.

As such, I call upon the Ministry to prioritise the building of childcare facilities in younger estates and to also factor childcare spaces into the design of BTO flats in all new towns. I would also like to ask the Minister if there are any specific plans to develop additional childcare facilities in Punggol East.

Madam, currently the Government gives childcare subsidies to working and non-working mothers whose children are enrolled in licensed childcare centres. Working mothers are given a maximum subsidy of $300. For mothers who are not working, they are also eligible for the subsidies, but at a reduced rate.

The call to give caregivers more recognition and support is ringing loud in this Budget debate. Therefore, I urge the Ministry to give caregivers access to full subsidy for childcare under certain circumstances. Would the Minister consider extending the full rate of basic childcare subsidy to non-working mothers as well as grant them the additional subsidy. If they have valid reasons to stay at home as a caregiver to family member in need of it. This is especially crucial to the lower income family as they would not have the means to employ a domestic helper to look after their aged or disabled parents.

In some instances, only the father can work because the mother may be hampered by illnesses and disability or disability that prevents her from seeking employment. Would the Minister consider these special circumstances and

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grant these mothers full subsidy, basic subsidy as well as additional subsidy?

Mdm Chair, I would like to thank the Government for accepting a number of NTUC proposals and for introducing the range of maternity and childcare benefits in the recent Marriage and Parenthood (M&P) package. It helps alleviate the financial burden of setting up families, encourages the sharing of parental responsibilities and enhances work-life balance.

I am supportive of these measures that are available to most parents. However, I would like to urge the Government to extend these benefits also to single unwed mothers.

The NTUC Women's Development Secretariat started the WeCare For U Project in 2009, to help single mothers build greater resilience and independence through various intervention programmes. The emphasis of the projects organised are also focused on helping parent and child to build stronger emotional bonds. As at February this year, we have reached out to 1,463 comprising of 487 single mothers and 976 children. Many of these women feel excluded as they are not entitled to the M&P benefits.

The M&P package was intended to encourage Singaporeans to marry and start families. I believe in the institution of marriage. It is important as it forms the foundation for a happy family. These policies are intended to give our children the protection, care, financial and emotional support from the day they were born.

Unfortunately, there will be instances where a child is born outside a marriage. If these incentives are not offered to unwed mothers, it is the children who will suffer more than the parent.

What matters most is the child. The issue is not the circumstances of the mother, or if the child was conceived out of wedlock. In principle, how would a child born outside of marriage be able to be considered socially mobile if the child was disadvantaged at birth?

Unwed mothers choose to keep their babies despite the difficulties that they face because they do not want to destroy a life. These parents need help from the Government, as an unwed parent has to take care of the child single-

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handedly.

I, therefore, would like to ask the Government to also include a child born to an unwed mother to be covered under the Child Development Co-savings Act and extend three of the below benefits to them: first, extended childcare leave; second, infant care leave; and third, qualifying/handicapped child relief.

Madam, I am heartened that the Government will be spending $3 billion to develop the pre-school sector. I would also like to ask the Minister, beyond the development of physical infrastructure, how many more professionals do we need to train, and how much of that fund will be allocated towards, firstly, the physical training infrastructure and institutions for training pre-school and childcare professionals; and secondly, the structured training and career development for pre-school and childcare professionals? Indeed, Madam, it is high time that we need to improve the image of our pre-school and childcare professionals because they impart life to our children.

Madam, a married woman is given 16 weeks of paid maternity leave. The situation for single mothers is very different. Single mothers are currently only entitled to eight weeks of paid maternity leave from the state. The bond between the mother and her child is special and often indescribable. Mothers in this House can certain attest to it.

Women today have many responsibilities, both in the workplace and at home. All the more the time a mother can share with a child is especially precious and, when managed well, can strengthen the psychological and emotional attachment of the mother and her child.

Maternity leave is particularly important for the child, as well as the mother, to recuperate physically and emotionally from child bearing. A mother's marital status is irrelevant. They may be single by chance, but mothers by choice. We must remember that such discrepancies in maternity leave only hurt the child who has to suffer from lack of time with his or her parents, simply because they are not married. It is unfair to penalise the child for whatever decision parents may have made that the State frowns upon.

Children, whether born to married parents or single parent homes, require the same amount of love, care and support from the parents they have. I certainly hope that the Government does not view an additional eight weeks of

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paid maternity leave to single mothers as a financial burden. Rather, I hope that the Government would appreciate the needs of a child as well as the value of the bond between the mother and her child which is non-measureable in monetary terms.

This is not about encouraging more single mothers but ensuring better and fair support for children who have been born to them. As such, I call upon the Ministry to consider extending the benefits of 16 weeks of paid maternity leave to single mothers and also look into granting paternity leave for single fathers.

Madam, the substantially high number of abortions in Singapore each year is a cause for concern. With our declining total fertility rate (TFR), I feel that it is a shame where about 12,000 foetuses are aborted annually, half of them was from married women. Can we do more to reduce these numbers? Can we make it easier for such women to carry their pregnancy to full term and give their baby up for adoption so that couples who really want a baby but have difficulties doing so can have one from someone who is not able to bring up the baby and is willing to give the baby up? Even if we are able to "save" only 10% of these abortion cases, that may mean 1,200 more babies in our midst.

I met a resident who lamented that the adoption process is a rather cumbersome and long-drawn one. She had to wait for about a year before she was able to adopt her daughter from a couple who could not bring her up. Can the Ministry study this and find ways to make the adoption process easier and shorter, but without compromising the legal and safety issues?

While we may worry about the unintended consequence where it may encourage more women to give up their newborn babies readily without extensive thought, I feel strongly against the innocent little lives that are lost just like that. I believe that for most of these women who decided not to continue with the pregnancy, adoption may not be an option that they were aware of or may have thought about. I hope the Ministry can take a lead in offering adoption as an alternative to abortion at the clinics and hospitals.

Madam, there are Singaporean couples who would love to have children but are unable to. Notwithstanding many fertility treatments, some couples are unable to

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conceive. Therefore, would the Ministry seriously consider promoting the adoption of Singaporean babies, who are unable to be taken care of by their birth mothers, by Singaporean couples who are seeking earnestly to have a child?

If we can promote the comforting, loving, nurturing and voluntary alternative of adoption to mothers thinking about abortion, we could possibly make many, many families wanting children very happy, and also give the newborn baby a chance at life within a loving and nurturing family. This could have the happy result of also increasing our TFR, which is at an all-time low. I wish to emphasise the word "voluntary" in this proposal.

Presently, there are 12,000 abortions per year. I strongly believe that if adoption is publicised as a comforting, loving, nurturing and voluntary alternative, there will be a reduced number of abortions in Singapore. If just 20% of the 12,000 are adopted into Singaporean families, that would mean an increase of 2,400 Singaporean babies – and a chance at life for a newborn, within a nurturing and loving family. Therefore, would the Ministry actively consider promoting adoption as a voluntary option for a mother who is thinking of abortion?

The culture of adopting children could be advertised more fully in the public domain so that Singaporeans do know that they could consider adopting a child, and then take steps to find out more. This would also allow mothers considering abortion to know more about the wonderful and voluntary option of adoption. Naturally, for the sake of the families, the children's and parents' names will remain confidential.

The promotion of adoption does not only involve couples who are unable to conceive, as there are many couples who already have birth children of their own who are open to adopting another child. Indeed, there are many wholesome, loving and beautiful traits in adoption – not just for the family seeking to adopt, but also for the adopted child, who can grow and be nurtured in a loving environment. Therefore, would the Government consider our proposal?

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Mdm Chair, I would like to join the calls made by hon Members Dr Intan and Mr de Souza. As many as 12,000 abortions take place in Singapore every year. At the same time, we have seen a steady decline of adoptions to only 400 cases. Notwithstanding the complex and sensitive factors at play, the fact remains – that every child that we save from early termination is one more precious Singaporean citizen brought into the world.

I urge the Minister to help expectant mothers who are contemplating abortions to consider putting them up for adoption instead. These ladies are often in distress about their personal circumstances and need help to understand that adoption can be a viable option for them.

We should put in place comprehensive assistance schemes to provide expectant mothers with both emotional and financial support during their pregnancies. They should be assured that their children would be adopted by couples who have been rigorously assessed to ensure suitability, and could grow up in loving environments, to lead fulfilling lives.

Many childless couples spend significant amounts of money adopting babies from overseas. It is heart breaking to read about unethical tactics that some adoption agencies used to find and sell babies. We should be very careful that this demand to adopt babies from overseas does not inadvertently fuel unscrupulous practices that create hardship for families elsewhere. Instead, I urge the Minister to strongly encourage the adoption of Singaporean babies by facilitating the matching of expectant mothers with the prospective adoptive parents locally. And I also hope the Minister can put in place regulations to ensure adoption agencies source children only through legitimate means.

Mdm Chair, last night I met at my Meet-the-People Session, a couple – husband is a Singaporean, wife is a Vietnamese. I think many Members in this House similarly have such encounters concerning the marital status of Singaporeans and their foreign spouse. There is a growing number of Singaporeans marrying foreign spouses. I think we need better support for family and marriage education programmes for soon-to-wed couples so that they develop the right mindsets and attitude and understand what it means to get married in Singapore.

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In the Budget debate last year, I called the Government to make plans to provide greater support for these foreign spouses. I know there will be challenges, especially if marriages are registered overseas and not in Singapore. However, I think it is important for us to explore options to extend pre-marital counselling services and marriage preparatory courses to Singaporeans and their foreign spouses. The sessions can be conducted through face-to-face meetings, workshops, videos, social media, or I might even suggest, a mini movie as well.

Let us prepare couples for better understanding as to what it means to be married in Singapore. What are the cultural experiences, and some of the processes involved; whether they come in as PRs, or holders of Long Term Visit Pass, Social Visit Pass Plus, and the likes of it. There are many complex issues each couple faced. I think many in this House like me play the "untrained" marriage counsellor each time we encounter some of these cases at our Meet-the-People Sessions. I recall many such cases raised during Parliamentary Questions. I hope the Government can take pre-emptive steps at the upstream to tackle some of these challenges faced by Singaporeans marrying foreign spouses.

Mdm Chair, let me thank all Members of the House who have spoken passionately about the family as an institution and as bedrock of our society. We are in good shape today. About 90% of the people surveyed said that the family is the most important aspect of their lives. Having said that, I do not think we can take that for granted. The stresses from rapid and volatile economic cycles, the challenges from alternative values systems across the entire world as we are so open, will continue to challenge the family as an institution in our society and may we, therefore, not be complacent that the family will always be the bedrock of our society.

Let me share the focus for the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) this year in terms of strengthening the family. The first is encouraging and promoting family formation and child development and I will spend quite a bit of time explaining the childcare industry to the Members of the House. The second, is how we engender a pro-family mindset and to strengthen family education for all life stages. And finally, the third, how do we support vulnerable families.

Let us begin with the first – family formation. To help Singaporeans meet their family formations, the Government has announced new and enhanced marriage and parenthood measures last month. For example, MND has announced various measures to help family formation and we welcome that.

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MSF will continue to work with other agencies to deliver other measures including the enhanced Baby Bonus to legislate new schemes like paternity and shared parental leave which shall take effect from 1 May this year.

Having spoken to many couples intending to get married and intending to have their children, we know that financial contribution is one of their top concerns. But beyond financial considerations, I think what is uppermost in their minds when they decide to have a child or not, are two very important things. One is the healthcare of their child. Everyone of us who have been parents know that so long as we are blessed with a healthy child, we cannot ask for much more. This is where MOH's initiative to cover neonatal conditions come in helpful.

The second thing that is very crucial to many of our young parents is the quality of care and education. Many have said that they do not want to bring a child into this world if they are not confident of bringing up the child well. And we can understand that. This is why MSF and MOE are committed to build an accessible, affordable and quality early childhood development sector, to holistically develop our children's potential, not just preparing them for Primary school, not just preparing them to pass and excel in academic subjects, but to equip them with the socio-emotional skills, motor skills and, most importantly, to ignite in them the passion to learn and the spirit of enquiry. This is what we hope to do.

Yesterday, Minister Heng Swee Keat has shared some of these initiatives and today, I will share more about the childcare sector.

Mdm Chair, if I may have your permission to flash out Chart 1 [A slide was shown to hon Members]. Today, for children five to six years old, almost 100% of them attend kindergarten. It was 95% four years ago. The last 4% to 5% which we have managed to achieve in the last four years was not easy. It took tremendous efforts on the part of the educators, grassroots volunteers and leaders to seek out the last few percentage of children who did not attend kindergarten. Many of them did not previously attend kindergarten because they thought they could not afford it. They were afraid.

But for many Members in this House who have walked the ground, you will know that today, no one will be deprived of a kindergarten education because they cannot afford it. They can always join one of the anchor operators, like PAP Community Foundation or NTUC. One of the conditions of being the anchor operator is to make sure that they cater to and take in the people who are unable

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to pay for the kindergarten services. So, I would like to thank all the volunteers, including the grassroots volunteers, grassroots leaders, who have walked the ground and visited their blocks to make sure that no child is left without kindergarten education. This is an ongoing effort. The fact that we are almost 100% today does not mean that we will be in this happy situation tomorrow. I must say that today, one of the roles of the anchor operator is to make sure they take in people from all walks of life, including those who are unable to pay for it.

What about children from five to six years old using childcare services? Four years ago, the percentage of five to six years old who used childcare services was 19%. Four years later today, it stands at 34%, which has almost doubled. For children who are 18 months to four years old, the figure was 23% four years ago from 2004 and 2008. Today, it stands at 36%. Both of these figures show a tremendous and significant increase in the demand for childcare services.

The question is, why is this demand growing so fast and so quickly? I believe that there are four main drivers.

First, as of today, many families are dual-income families. Many of our females desire to go back into the labour force and pursue their career. Our female labour force participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 has increased from 65% in 2001 to 76% today. We have one of the highest female labour force participation rates in the world. This is good news. Our females are highly educated, have the capabilities and want to continue to pursue their careers. And that is why we must give options to our young parents – male or female – to place their children in good, affordable, quality and accessible childcare. I am not saying that everybody should put their children in childcare. But for those who desire, we will try to make sure that they have a place.

Second, our social norms have changed. Grandparents are less available to help us take care of our children now. Many of them either live further away from their children or they have their own life pursuits. Childcare services have also become much more accessible because of the quality of both the teachers and the centres. Many parents have provided feedback to us that they are now much more willing to consider childcare as an option.

Third, the Government has also made access to childcare more affordable. At this point, I would like to clarify that all parents, regardless of working status, are supported through basic subsidies. They are also supported by other forms

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of assistance, such as the Baby Bonus and Child Development Account matched savings scheme, which are used to defray childcare expenses. Working parents receive additional support as they need to send their children to full-day childcare programmes, which are, generally, more expensive. As part of our recent subsidy enhancements, larger families can also qualify based on the per capita income. The application process has also been simplified. Now, people do not have to go to the Community Development Councils (CDCs) to apply for childcare financial assistance. You only need to go to the childcare centre to fill up the form. It is a one-stop service at the childcare centre.

If I may just reply to Mr Gerald Giam, we agree with Mr Giam that student care is a continuation of childcare. Yesterday, Minister Heng Swee Keat announced that we will step up the provision of student care in the schools. We also agree that student care services should also be provided in the community. There are advantages to having student care in the school. The children do not need to travel long distances to the student care centre in the community. There are also advantages, like you said, for some community services because not all schools may require the service and have the economies of scale. We are stepping up on this. And I would also just like to add that 400 student care centres are already administrating the student care subsidy so we will continue to expand this.

Now, let me go on to the fourth factor as to why the childcare demand has increased so substantially. Someone asked me: why do you build more childcare centres when our TFR is decreasing? This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Singaporeans may not have children because they feel that there is no adequate childcare provision. This way, we get ourselves into a vicious cycle – not enough childcare options and, therefore, no children. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would rather err on the side of caution, where I provide more choices for young parents who consider childcare as a viable option.

This is why we will continue to build childcare centres to meet the demands of our new generation of young parents. And we agree that this generation's demand is different from the last generation. For the last generation, most of us grew up in our own homes. Today, many of us are dual-income families and that is why we need more childcare facilities.

We are taking actions to meet this demand and to even plan ahead to meet future demand, which is why we have embarked on the new Child Care

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Masterplan to build on the success of the previous 2008 Child Care Masterplan.

From 2005 to 2008, there was a 10% increase in the total childcare capacity. From 2009 to 2012, our childcare capacity increased by 45%, almost double. In the original Masterplan in 2008, we planned to build 200 centres in five years. In the end, we built 267 centres in about four-plus years.

Having said that, the demand for childcare is still strong. The enrolment rate of our centres is about 80%. Once the childcare centres fill up to beyond 80%, it is an indication of a potential demand for new childcare centres in the locality. We will usually not fill all centres up to 100% as we should retain some spare capacity for contingencies and for shifts in demand. We also need to cater for contingencies whereby one or two childcare centres may be shut down temporarily because of an outbreak of disease and so forth.

There are also local hotspots, especially in the new towns where there are many more new and younger couples. The demand for childcare services is very strong. Some of the existing centres have enrolment over 85%. For example, Punggol currently has 22 centres. We will be building 15 more in the next two years. In Woodlands, there are currently 49 centres. We will be building 10 more in the next two years. And in the coming year, my officers will be going constituency by constituency, division by division, to meet up with the local grassroots leaders to identify the sites and to get support from them to build more centres.

If we look at the experiences of other countries, it is quite telling. The demand for childcare follows an "S" curve. When income and education levels are relatively low, the demand for childcare is not very high. It comes to a point when the growing middle class, growing number of women returning to the workforce and growing quality of childcare services see a sharp demand. We are at this stage. The demand will eventually taper off as the number of women going back to the workforce stabilises.

In the next five-year Masterplan, from 2013 to 2017, we will aim to change childcare provision from the current one in three children for every cohort, to one in two, and provide full day childcare places for these children aged 18 months to six years old. This will require us to build 20,000 more places to meet this target.

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There are two main challenges to meet this demand – sites and teachers. These are challenges that many Members of this House have identified.

Let me talk about sites. I would like to show a second slide, Mdm Chair. We have plans to work with MND to in-build the childcare centres into new Build-to-Order (BTO) flats, new car parks and so forth. Pre-building in new BTOs is a longer term plan.

The short-term plan is to not only look for void decks to convert into childcare centres, but also explore all sorts of innovative ideas, including the conversion of disused facilities. On the screen you can see the conversion of one former swimming complex in Bukit Merah, which is now Eager Beaver School House. Another one is at the former Serangoon bus interchange, and you can see the artist's impression of the new childcare centre that will be ready in a couple of months' time. We have also converted a bank into a childcare centre in Taman Jurong. If Members have other innovative ideas on where you would like to build your childcare centres, let us know and we will work on it. I have heard other innovative ideas from Miss Penny Low to build centres in parks, green spaces or temporary structures. We welcome all suggestions, so long as this is acceptable to the community and to the parents who entrust their children in our care. We will also co-locate with other facilities, for example, car parks in Sengkang and Tanjong Pagar, and a hawker centre in Woodlands. If you have ideas, we welcome them and will work with you to make it happen.

We will increase the number of childcare centres at workplaces. We will further encourage owners of private premises to make full use of the URA's Community and Sports Facilities Scheme to provide extra gross floor area for developers so that they can partner the operators to provide more childcare options for our young families. People usually look for childcare centres in three places. One, near our own homes. Two, near our workplaces. Three, near our parents' places. Today, out of the 1,000 childcare centres, about a quarter of them are located at workplaces. We can go further. It will be wonderful to provide parents with peace of mind and they can visit their kids even during lunch time.

We will continue to ensure good quality manpower – the other challenge. I agree with Mr Ang Hin Kee. When we talk to the childcare teachers, many of them do not start off by talking about pay. They are in the profession because of their passion, because they like kids and because they have a way to bring up the kids. This is highly commendable. But, on the other hand, they do not wish to be seen as super nannies. They are professionals in their own right.

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They want to improve the image of early childhood professionals.

I think all of us as parents can do more to help. When we send our children to the childcare centre, we could at least acknowledge the childcare teachers and show them our appreciation. Please do not deposit the child at the childcare centre and give the teacher a list of instructions, such as, "please make sure my child doesn't fall down or have mosquito bites". And when we collect our children at the end of the day, again we should thank the childcare teachers, instead of checking whether our children have mosquito bites or whether the child has fallen down. The childcare teachers have told me that they can take a bit less pay, but they should be given a bit more respect. And I think we can all do more to acknowledge and affirm the good work done by our childcare teachers.

It is not an easy job, as all of us with children would know, especially for those who have had to take care of our child at home for 24 hours. To take care of many other people's children for at least eight to 10 hours a day is not an easy job. So, let us do our part to acknowledge the childcare teachers who work very hard to take care of our children.

We will continue to work with WDA and training agencies to expand our manpower pipeline. And we agree that we need to raise the professional image of the sector.

This is where the structure of the sector is very important. When we have a very fragmented market like today with more than 400 operators running 1,000 childcare centres, it is very difficult for individual childcare centres and operators to provide a proper route of advancement and development opportunities for the childcare teachers. If you run one centre, you cannot afford one or two teachers to take time off to attend training or upgrading courses. These are challenges that we have to overcome.

We also welcome suggestions from operators to maximise manpower resources in innovative ways while maintaining quality. We are talking to some of them and would like to share the best practices with the rest of the sector. I agree with Mr Ang Hin Kee that teacher qualities go beyond academic qualifications. Some may not have the necessary academic qualifications but they have a certain way with children and are able to bring them up with the correct values and the correct attitude to learning. This is what we want and we will be prepared to work with the operators to consider these deserving cases.

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Now the question is – what is the correct way to structure the childcare industry? Over these last two weeks, inside and outside the House, we have heard many differing views. Some call for nationalisation, others call for privatisation. Minister Heng spoke about some of the challenges of nationalisation yesterday. If we do nationalise, the question that we have to ask ourselves is whether we are able to provide the diversity required for the industry. We know that children learn very differently.

A one-size-fits-all learning method will probably not work. We want diversity and we want to give choices to our parents. We also respect the dedicated educators who set up existing kindergartens and childcare centres with very innovative teaching methods. We should keep them in our system and, if possible, help them grow. On the other hand, some have called for privatisation with many small players in the sector, and to give equal subsidy to all operators. We are cautious because the experience of other countries has shown that this may not work out very well. In this unregulated market, what is most likely to happen, is that the top for-profit segment of the market will grow very quickly. And the middle segment for the mass market will grow the slowest. If we continue this trajectory, we will not be able to provide affordable options for the mass market. So, we welcome ideas, like Mr Yee Jenn Jong's suggestion, and we will consider them. We will announce more of these details when we are ready to call for proposals for new AOPs.

The childcare sector is also quite different from some other markets. Information is critical. The question is how to assess the quality of a childcare service. There are no examinations, and we are not suggesting having examinations. But how do we assess which childcare operator provides better service? The unfortunate experience in some other countries is that, when people are short of tangible evidences, they look to price as a proxy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. High-end operators attract people who can pay for the services and they produce quite good services whereas the mass market languish.

The other question is, beyond looking at it from the child's perspective, how do we provide training and career development opportunities for the many teachers in this industry? This, I think, is critical. When we are too small, each by ourselves, we cannot do that. When we are too big, we also have other challenges.

MSF's main concern is how to provide affordable and quality childcare options to the mass market, to the people in the middle and lower income groups? This is not an ideological debate; there is nothing philosophical about

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this. We want practical solutions.

Let me share on the envisaged structure. There will be a role for various private sector operators and they can contribute to the sector. They will try different approaches to early childhood development. They will meet different needs and different aspirations of parents. Some parents will choose this option and we will support private operators in improving their services. We want to uplift the whole sector, including some private centres.

On the other hand, we will ensure that mass market options are of good quality and affordable for the low- and middle-income families.

If I may have your permission, Mdm Chair, to show another chart. This is our situation four years ago, prior to the start of our Masterplan. And four years since the Masterplan, from 2005 to 2008, there were only seven new not-for-profit centres to cater to the mass market. There were 52 new for-profit commercial centres. My first conclusion is that the private sector is doing very well on its own. We then implemented the Masterplan to give a big push to the not-for-profit operators and the entire sector. In the last four years, we have 135 new not-for-profit centres catering to the mass market. In comparison, there were 132 new for-profit commercial centres. Despite the fact that the Government is helping the not-for-profit operators to expand for the mass market, we can see how fast the commercial operators are growing.

Our fear and our concern is whether we have sufficient mass market options for our middle and low-income groups? That is our challenge. I am quite sure the number of operators will grow. My concern is how the sector will grow. Will we end up like some countries, where there are many commercial operators providing high-end care options, but are unable to provide the mass market options?

In the UK, some studies have shown that the out-of-pocket expenditure for childcare services can take up to 30% to 40% of their household income. I do not think we want that. Today, in Singapore, for each child, the out-of-pocket expense is comfortably within the single digit range. We benchmark our subsidies to ensure affordable options for the mass market so that the lower and middle income families have access to child care services.

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Now, let me talk a bit about the AOP Scheme. The AOP Scheme has helped us expand the options for the middle income group. We have grown to about 130 centres and their fees are below the industry median. This is one of the criteria for the AOP Scheme. So, instead of chasing prices upwards, they can anchor the market. Fifty-seven per cent of the SPARK-certified centres are from the AOPs. This is a low number; and I think we can do better.

The AOPs' large network and better economies of scale help them to improve their operational and human resource capabilities. We want to support more AOPs to come in to provide quality, affordable, accessible childcare services, in particular, to the middle income and the lower income groups. The niche service providers are able to meet the demands of the higher income group.

We want to have an industry-wide support to ensure quality across the board. And this is where we need to focus on teaching and learning resources. If I may at this point deviate a little to clarify on what Ms Denise Phua and Mr Png Eng Huat mentioned about subsidies. Today, we have full childcare subsidy for full day open to all, including single moms. For mothers who are not working, we have – on appeal – approved more than 400 cases for exactly the same reasons that you have mentioned. So, if you know of anybody who may need such services, do let us know.

Let me talk about the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) and the road ahead. ECDA will commence its operations from 1 April this year. They will do three things. First, they will do master-planning for the entire sector, town by town, division by division, constituency by constituency, to work with the local leaders to identify possible sites. In fact, we have already identified about 80% of the sites. But there is still another 20% to go. And we want to work with the local community leaders to make this happen.

Second, ECDA will focus on capability building, on curriculum development, and manpower development. In terms of curriculum development, together with the effort from MOE, we want to disseminate best practices, whether it is from the AOP or the non AOP, to the entire sector and level up the whole sector. And this is the way we want to push up the quality for the entire childcare industry. In terms of manpower development, we will continue to source for alternative sources of manpower. These include people who might not be in the sector now and people who might be tempted to come back on a part-time basis to help out in the sector. And there is tremendous potential for us to do this.

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I have also asked ECDA to harmonise the rules and regulations between the kindergarten and the childcare sector. We do this to make sure that we provide greater ease of operation for the operators, and that we provide peace of mind to the parents, not just in terms of quality, but also in the continuity of services, from childcare to kindergarten and, in time to come, to afterschool care and beyond. We want parents to have the peace of mind so that when they have a child, they need not worry about the quality or cost of education.

Finally, children is at the centre of everything we do. We want quality programmes. We want diversity in the childcare options for our children because we recognise that not all children learn by the same way.

Let me take 30 seconds to tell Members the story of why we called this agency ECDA. We chose this name after a long deliberation. Early childhood development not only encompasses Primary 1 and academic subjects. We want to remind everyone that we are developing the child, giving him or her the foundation for his or her life. And that requires many more skillsets. It requires a holistic development beyond the academic subjects. We are very concerned that this is perceived as merely pre-school development. If that was the case, then we would have failed in our mission. This is something that we have to join hands and work together on. It is a mindset that we all must embrace as we go forward and develop our children.

To round up the childcare portion, our mantra is still the three words: "Affordability", "Accessibility" and "Quality". That has not changed. We will support the operators in the sector to see how we can uplift their quality. We will support all the parents to make sure that we provide affordable options to the parents and provide peace of mind; they do not need to arrange for their child to attend the next higher-priced programme which, in turn, becomes an improper proxy for the quality of the programme. Most importantly, we want to make sure that as the sector develops, we continue to have affordable options for the middle and lower income groups.

Now let me move on to the second thrust of MSF's work on the family this year, and that is encouraging a pro-family mindset. We agree with Mr Seah Kian Peng that family promotion and education goes beyond financial and material support. MSF takes a long-term approach to this and we want to focus on building the foundation and the values. It will not yield us results in the short term. But we think and we believe that this is important for us going into the long term. We believe that with this foundation, we will have better chances to

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have stronger families in the future.

In the past, we have always sought to equip ourselves with family life skills and to lead fulfilling family lives. Ten years ago, our outreach in terms of family education was 200,000 participants. Last year, we reached one million participants in our outreach but we are not happy, nor are we satisfied. We know the changing socio-economic circumstances. We know the upcoming stressors and strains to the families. We intend to make a big push to spend $40 million in the next three years to reach out to more than two million participants in terms of family life education. We will be launching the Family Matters! Initiative.

If I may show a diagram, Mdm Chair. We want to take a life-cycle approach – from the time when the children are young to how we inculcate in our children, our youth, the values of family life, the importance of families; to the time that they go on to work, and to the time when they become a married couple. Having gotten married is not the end of the journey and the end of education. At every stage of life, there are different stressors and strains. We need to support our married couples, our first-time parents and parents with young children. Over and above all these, and over and above parents with teenage children, we also have to take care of our children with elderly parents, many of them need to be supported. This is the entire life-cycle approach where every life stage matters in the family education and formation. We will synergise the family education effort more holistically.

We will introduce four initiatives: Family Matters @ Schools where we have programmes for students and parents to talk about some of these issues. For example, at Princess Elizabeth Primary School, they regularly organise programmes to help children and parents bond; and through the whole process, understand and appreciate the value of family life and set the children on a foundation to love and appreciate the family in time to come.

In response to Mr Seah Kian Peng, today about 800 schools and pre-schools offer programmes; but I think we can do more, and we will. At higher levels like JCs and Polytechnics, students do benefit from modules on relational and life skills, and we will continue to push to reach out to more people.

Family Matters @ Work encourages companies to offer family education and bonding programmes, and this complements MOM's work-life measures. For example, many companies organise programmes for singles; many companies also organise programmes for married couples. I always thought

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that once in a while we should organise the two of them together; so at least the singles do not feel that they are being singled out, and they can at least appreciate the joys, the trials and tribulations of married life by the shared stories of those who have walked the journey before them. Hopefully, those who have walked the journey before them will inspire them to take that leap of faith because for all of us who have walked this journey before, married life is a leap of faith. You will never know the destination, but we can all enjoy the journey together.

We will revamp the scheme to encourage more companies to join. Today, we have about 1,500 companies under our Family Life Ambassador Scheme. We will want to do more and we will encourage many more companies to come on board and join us.

Likewise, we will leverage on the resources and the networks in the community – the People's Association, the NGOs, the public agencies, the Community Clubs, and Libraries – to promote Family Matters @ Community, so that we achieve a better work-life balance and better personal mastery, and be more confident in how we build our families.

Finally, Family Matters @ Businesses. We want to encourage more pro-family infrastructure, products and services. For example, today when we go around, many places have pro-family infrastructures – having just a simple gesture of extra car parking spaces for families with strollers and prams, makes a tremendous difference. I just visited the Gardens by the Bay and could not find a car park lot. Finally, I drove by this blue box that says that you are entitled to park here if you have strollers. I had two, so I qualified. Made my day. Small gesture.

We will build a strong pool of educators and invest in their professional development. This is an acquired skill; it is not easy but we will do more. All these will be part of the $40 million programme in the next three years for us to push. We will make a big push on family education.

Let me come to the last part where I talk about support for vulnerable families. We understand and we appreciate that many of these families need additional support, especially single mothers. But single mothers are not a uniform group – there are unwed single mothers, there are divorced single mothers, and there are widowed single mothers. I appreciate the push by Mr Seah Kian Peng, Dr Janil Puthucheary, Ms Janice Koh, Ms Mary Liew and Ms

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Lee Li Lian for speaking up on behalf of the single parents.

MND recently announced measures to support singles, divorced and widowed single parents − we are happy for that. To better support their caregiving responsibilities, the Government will extend infant care and childcare leave provisions to unwed single parents. This means that like other parents, single unwed parents will receive the same childcare leave support − six days of childcare leave a year for children below seven years of age, and two days for those aged between seven and 12. Single unwed parents will also enjoy six days of unpaid infant care leave a year if they have a child below age two. This will come into effect on 1 May this year. We will continue to strive to provide better support for our families under duress.

Dr Intan, Mr Christopher de Souza and Ms Foo Mee Har have talked about adoption. Yes, we would like to encourage more adoptions where we can, but this is a serious undertaking about a child's life and a child's development. It is also a serious undertaking on how we want to build the family relationship.

On average, we take about five months now to process an adoption case. We will see how we can simplify and strengthen this without compromising on the quality of assessment and care for the child. Adoption in other countries can take up to two years because of the rules and regulations of that country. Where we can, we will work closely with those countries and continue to learn from other countries' best practices.

Ms Foo Mee Har and Mr Christopher de Souza also talked about abortion. Every year we have about 12,000 abortions. Slightly more than half of them are by Singaporean women. A quarter of the entire number are Singaporean women who are married. Twelve thousand is the whole number, about half of the abortions are by Singaporean women, and another half of the half, which is a quarter of the total, are Singaporean women who are married.

Today, we have measures in place, such as counselling them on the risks and implications of an abortion. Written consent can only be given after a "cooling-off period". Social service agencies also provide counselling and support to these women, including guiding them on other options such as adoption.

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Having said this, I must say that this is a very difficult and tricky topic. Social service agencies that have provided abortion counselling tell us that adoption is one of the hardest options to raise to these women. It is very difficult for a woman to consider going through the pregnancy only to give the child away at birth. It is not easy.

We will work with social agencies to provide more information and support to these women, so that they can make informed choices. However, the decision to carry a baby to term or to abort a baby is ultimately a deeply personal one, influenced by many important and unique factors to the individual, which we must respect. Discouraging abortion and encouraging adoption should not be seen as the solution to our TFR challenge. Rather, we should enhance support for such vulnerable families and women for them to make informed decisions. For every successful case, we rejoice but we must also appreciate that this is something deeply personal, and there are many considerations that we must respect.

Mr Ang Hin Kee talked about foreign spouses and the challenges of transnational couples. We acknowledge this. Forty per cent of our Singaporeans marry someone who is not Singaporean.

In 2011, MSF piloted a marriage preparation programme for transnational couples. It did not work. It was not very popular because the transnational couples did not want to be singled out. So, we incorporated the topics into mainstream marriage preparation programmes, and MSF provides some support for couples to attend such programmes, regardless of whether they are transnational marriages or not. We hope that Members in this House will continue to help us reach out to such couples because many of them face very difficult challenges settling in a new land. There is much that we need to do for these transnational couples.

Finally, if I may just take the remaining two minutes to conclude on the family portion. At a very personal level, having a family goes beyond financial calculations. It always bothers me when someone takes out a financial sheet to calculate the pluses and minuses of having a family. I think that starts us off on the wrong track.

The tangible calculations cannot measure the intangibles of family life – the source of support, the purpose to our life, the anchor for our life's direction. Much is a leap of faith. Married life is about a determination and a compact to walk life's journey together. It does not come without challenges, the

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destination may be unknown, but for those of us who have walked it, I think the journey is definitely worthwhile.

Finally, it leaves me to thank all Members of the House who have spoken during the various "cuts". Actually, I never understood why they are called "cuts". I was told that it was called "cuts" because, in normal parliamentary proceedings, people usually try to cut your budget, so, it is either you have it or I have it.

Today, we are in a comfortable position on two counts, at least for MSF. Today, nobody in this House has stood up to say that they want to cut our social budget. All of us want to do more, and we will want to do more, but we must also bear in mind that this may not be the happy situation that we will be in forever. As economic growth slows, the competition for scarce resources intensifies. I hope to have your support to continue this journey together and that, year after year, we can come back here and have "adds" and not "cuts", but we must be realistic.

On the other hand, today, I am in a comfortable position because many Members, through their own networks, have stepped forward and joined the circle of support for all our weak, our vulnerable, and our needy. This is not easy. We want to sustain this. We do not want to end up in a situation where everybody is only looking after themselves – a "I-me-myself" mentality – and not caring for my fellow men, my fellow neighbour, my fellow person in the community.

So, today, whether it is budgetary resources or social network, I think we are in good shape, but let us not take this for granted that it will always be so. And I look forward to walking this journey with all Members of the House.

Madam, thank you for your indulgence. I thank the Minister for his passionate call for action on youths-at-risk in Singapore. In my main Budget speech, I asked for a fair deal for young Singaporeans, and youths-at-risk certainly deserve our attention.

The Minister has made a call for youth mentors to help our youths-at-risk. I ask the Minister for clarification on what means the Ministry is considering and how we, in the House, can help. I also take the opportunity to recognise the work of the Central Youth Guidance Office for the quiet work they have done

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behind the scenes.

The second clarification is slightly related but still on a separate note. The hon Members, Dr Intan, Mr de Souza and Ms Foo spoke passionately about abortion and adoption. I echo their views on giving children facing abortion a fighting chance. I seek a clarification. Can the Minister share, if it is available, the number of local children who may be up for adoption at the moment, and the number of Singaporeans who may be registered and are in line for adoption? Will the Ministry also consider a national adoption information clearing house such as that adopted in the US, so that there is a clear line of how many people are actually looking at adoption?

Finally, it leaves me to say that I echo the calls that I have made earlier in my cut, not to cut, but to increase, and I hope that the Minister will also receive additional manpower help within his Ministry to assist him.

Let me thank Mr Alex Yam for his support. If anyone of us come across people who can perform the role of youth mentors, do let us know, because there are various youth groups started by the youths themselves who are organising this youth mentorship to reach out to the youths-at-risk. There is certain confidentiality in the entire process. I do not think we want to identify the youths-at-risk. We just want to befriend them and, through the process, help them to get onto the correct path. So, if there are youth members whom Members of this House know, let us know, and we will put them in touch with the appropriate agencies.

On the idea of having a clearing house for adoption, we will see how we can do this well, because there are certain confidentiality issues in relation to this whole issue. As mentioned, every year, the average number of child adoptions in Singapore is about 400. It has been so for the last five years – on average, about 400. Half of the adoptions are Singaporean parents to Singaporean children. The other half are Singaporean parents to foreign children. There are some cultural differences. There are some personal preferences. It is very difficult to get an exact match but, where possible, we always try to match up. Like what Members in the House said, every one child saved and every one child matched with a proper family is one more happy Singaporean.

Thank you, Mdm Chair. I have two clarifications. First of all, I am very heartened by the good news extended to single unwed mothers. My first point of clarification is this. There are many plans which the Ministry is rolling out, and I support all of them. I have asked in my earlier cut about the demands on the manpower side, the manning side, whether it is for social workers or for childcare teachers. Could the Minister share with us how his Ministry intends to provide this manning level to support the plans that we are going to roll out?

My second clarification concerns the adult disability homes, the day activity centres and also the senior group homes. Again, these are very good measures to roll all of them out. The Minister mentioned that for some, it is based on needs. What I would like to suggest is that for certain infrastructure that we have decided, and rightly so, to build ahead of demand. I would like to suggest to the Minister that for these homes − all of us have many of these cases in our MPS − that we should also not wait for needs to arise, but to build ahead of demand.

Let me thank Mr Seah Kian Peng for his supplementary clarifications. For manpower, indeed, there are a few things that we are doing. I will touch on social workers first. First, we need to look at the way that we do the work. We want to make sure that the social workers and the social service professionals devote most of their time to the front-end case management. What we want to do is to lighten the backend administrative work. This will help us to improve the productivity and streamline the processes, so that we can make better use of the available manpower.

As I shared just now, we hope to increase the number of people who can make mid-career switches to join the social service sector. Many of these people are also very mature and they have gone through life's journey and can become a valuable part of the social service profession. These are things that we can try to do to attract more of them. Of course, we must make sure that the career opportunities and the pay scales keep up with the market.

On childcare teachers, there are a few things that we are doing. First, we are trying to increase the number of part-time staff who are prepared to come back and join the sector. We will also be sourcing for some foreign staff if it is opportune and appropriate. Again, we try to attract some of the mid-career entrants to join us. There is potential to attract the pool of part-time staff and maybe even some of the retired or relief teachers, because they are already in a sector that is associated with the care and education industry.

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On the second clarification, indeed, that is what we are doing. We are very good at building hard infrastructures. We have codified everything from the number of trees to the width of the footpath and in everything that we build. Going forward, MND has been very supportive in that we not only need the hard infrastructure, we also need to build social infrastructures into all the new flats and new towns that we build. So, it is not just about competition for void deck spaces but, instead of competing for void deck spaces, to in build some of these things into the new buildings. For example, we all know certainly a new town will require childcare centres. So, instead of having it at a void deck, it could be in built into the buildings and the precinct. Anyway, it will never go to waste because while the space was used for a childcare centre today, it could be used for a senior activity centre later on. So, it will not go to waste; we will not waste resources.

For senior group homes, these are meant for seniors who are already staying in a certain community. What we try to do is to group them together so that they do not have to be uprooted to another place, we want them to stay within the community – what we call "ageing in place" – so that they do not have to move from Bedok to Jurong when they need a different support system. Only as a last resort, when they have to go to an institutional home, they may have to be uprooted. I think so long as the elders can continue to remain active in their community, it actually keeps them active and healthy for a longer period than if we were to uproot them and take them away from the community.

So, indeed, we are going ahead with working on the plans with MND to make sure we in build all these social infrastructures into our new towns as we build them for the coming years. These must be codified into the way we think and the way we plan. I would love the day when I open my street directory, it does not just show me the roads, the block numbers, but it also shows me where all the social service centres, all the Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs), all on the map. Today, I am not there yet. Today, I have petrol kiosks on my street directory but not the Family Service Centres (FSCs), VWOs on the street directory yet. So, I will work towards that.

Madam, I would like to seek the Minister's clarifications on three things. One, I think the Minister has not replied to my question on what has changed in terms of communicating and updating the special needs community since the last Enabling Masterplan (EM) expired, in terms of the mode and pace of communicating. Many do not seem to know

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what has been happening there.

Secondly, on drop-in centres. I am very happy that the Minister has announced four drop-in centres, but he mentioned it is for the mildly disabled. But I think the real need – the real challenge as well – is for those whose families are looking after those who are more severely disabled, and they are quite in pain, so I am asking if the Minister has some plans for that.

The third clarification is on social delivery system. I thank the Minister for setting up the Social Service Office in Moulmein-Kallang GRC. I still want to know from the Minister how do all these different organisations – Social Service Offices, CDCs, Family Service Centres (FSCs), VWOs, Centre for Enabled Living (CEL), for example, and so forth – connect and, therefore, what is the entire roadmap for somebody who is seeking help? How does it work or how is this going to be stitched together?

Mdm Chair, on the first point about communications, we agree that we need to do more, and we will need the Member's help to reach out to people with special needs. Indeed, she is right, many of them are not aware of the plans. Sometimes, we have so many initiatives that it is difficult to digest. We intend to roll out the initiatives one at a time so as to constantly remind people of the services, for example, whether it is taxis, SPED schools, and so forth. We will need her help to see how we can do better.

For the drop-in centres, we are starting off with those with are mildly disabled. We recognise that there is a need for services that cater to the more severely disabled ones. At this point in time, I must be frank that we are building up our capabilities and capacities to serve this group. It is not easy because they require much more help than the mildly disabled ones, both from a medical perspective and also from a social perspective. But, in due course, we will try to ramp up this as soon as we gather the relevant experiences. For the mildly disabled, we are also able to incorporate some of the centres as an extension of some of the other activity centres. It is probably a bit easier for the people there to accept them. For the severely disabled, we will really need the community's help to be open to the idea of having day activity facilities to be established in the community. So, we will work towards that. We are not there yet.

On Social Service Offices, we already have five that we will convert from the existing CDCs, and we will have 15 more, one in every town. The Social Service Office will not duplicate the role of the FSCs or the CDCs and CEL. Where

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services are already provided by the VWOs, whether it is FSC or other VWOs, they will continue to provide these services. But what this Social Service Office can do is to better integrate the different types of services required. I will give an example. Supposing now someone wants to go to Toa Payoh and set up another senior activity centre − in the past, it used to be that they would put up some proposals to MSF and then they would see whether or not we would fund them for that centre. But we want the Social Service Office to be the first point of contact for these emerging VWOs. We will go and talk to this local planning office, very much like the HDB office in the town, to see where the needs are, identify the locations and work with the local community to bring that about, so that we do not have an over-provision of certain services and an under-provision of other services within that community.

So, whoever is providing the existing services will continue but, instead of having to go through the HQ, we will deploy the Social Service Offices in the town to make sure that they harmonise the kind of work that is required of them. Of course, the other thing that the Social Service Office will do is financial assistance, which is currently accessible at the five CDCs across the island. So, instead of accessible points, we will increase from five to 20, so that will allow the people who need help to actually not travel such long distances and to have one in every town. It will not correspond exactly to all the current GRC boundaries because we work on the current township boundaries so that people have a natural focal point for services.

In time to come, we will see whether other services would like to co-locate with us. There is always this possibility. We call it a Social Service Office and not a financial assistance office because in time to come, if other agencies feel that there is a need and they want to come and join us, we welcome them to come and join us. These can include employment centres and also other types of help. At the same time, the Social Service Office may also be co-located with one of the existing CDCs or FSCs so that we do it together rather than separately. So, this is work-in-progress, and we will continue to refine the model as we go along.

Mdm Chair, two clarifications, please. May I ask the Minister whether he will set up a system, in place with resources, to assist disadvantaged children in a more holistic way and adopt a hands-on approach in order to give this group a chance in social mobility? My second clarification is on what he said earlier. He said that the Public Assistance (PA) cases do not need to come forward to seek for extra assistance because they are visited regularly, and he added that, in fact, it should be so because they will not know the new financial assistance scheme. May I ask the Minister who

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are these people that he referred to, who pay visits to our 3,000 cases of PA presently, and how often are these visits made?

Mdm Chair, on the first clarification from Dr Lily Neo, in fact, this scheme is exactly what I talked about. I mentioned earlier today that the ComCare deals with short-term assistance, and the PA deals with very long-term assistance. Somewhere in between, those people require hand-holding from five to 10 years, or really for their children to get out of the difficult circumstances, to finish school and start life afresh − this is the group that we want to focus on in the coming year. We are developing a programme that provides what I call "the medium term assistance" that goes beyond the one to two years of the ComCare but may not be as permanent as the current PA.

The main challenge for this, again, is finding the mentorship to guide these people in this journey. So, this is what we were referring. For the PA cases, we review them regularly now, especially the older ones. We expect our officers to visit them and we also expect to work with the grassroots because, like what the Member said, it is very difficult to visit 3,000 people and make the assessment. The sources of information can come from our social service professionals, or it can come from the grassroots or people who have identified that they need more help. They can also come from the medical side because when they visit the polyclinics, the medical social workers can also give us the information.

For example, in the Tier Two where we talked about additional help, when it comes to medical and health supplements, actually much of this information is given to us by MOH, from the medical social workers who see them when they go to the polyclinic. As far as possible, we do not need and we do not want the elderly and frail to have to do these applications. We want to be proactive, go forward, and serve them. Like the Member said, as there are 3,000 of them, it not so easy to visit all of them at the same time, but progressively we will do so.

From the initial conception of the scheme, we roughly know what percentage it is. Not all 3,000 of them will require Tier Two or additional tier. We will focus our attention this year on those that need it most first, and we will progressively check the rest. Based on our records, we know who are those who need a bit more help – they are already in our records − and those are our planning parameters on why we come up with the Tier Two and Tier Three assistance. But if grassroots organisations have anybody that they feel need

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such assistance, do let us know, that will help us in our work as well.

Madam, I have three clarifications for the Acting Minister. The Acting Minister has said that there are some childcare centres that have innovative practices and ought to be retained. The fact remains that operationally, it has become impossible to operate at fees offered by anchor operators because of the huge set-up grants and operating grants they get. For example, I met this operator who is trained in special needs and wants to set up a centre in a neighbourhood centre but paying $45,000 monthly rent it is impossible for her to be near to the anchor operators' prices. And today in the newspaper, the YWCA director was quoted about the competition for staff from anchor operators, and that is one of the challenges that she faced.

Question two is that in considering new anchor operators, I would like to request the Ministry to look at keeping the system open so that you can be bidding for clusters of sites when these clusters are available rather than to fix to two to three anchor operators at this time.

The third clarification is that the Acting Minister showed some charts earlier and said that he wanted more mass market options. Now, to solve this problem, one possibility is for the Ministry to define the fee range for these sites and open it up for bidding so that you are actually in direct control of these fees because site availability and the high cost of rental is a huge problem for operators today.

Mdm Chair, I thank Mr Yee Jenn Jong for his suggestions. I would like to take all three together. All the ideas that he has raised are indeed things that we have considered. I will not make a response today because some of them are commercially sensitive. When we announce the criteria for the new anchor operators, I am sure many of these issues will be addressed.

Madam, I have three areas of clarifications. I would like to, first, thank the Minister for recognising the works of our social enterprises and hope that the Minister would also extend the scheme to have larger VWOs to that of social enterprises as well. In my speech, I think there are two other questions that have not been answered. The first is whether the Minister would consider a suitable legal entity and tax policies that will recognise the social benefits that social enterprises deliver and also whether he would consider a social value weight in its goods and services procurement for social enterprise goods and services.

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The second is I would also like to thank the Minister for recognising the long years of hard work that my grassroots leaders and myself have put into securing more childcare centres and kindergartens for Punggol residents. And I hope that he would get his team, together with MOE, to work even closer together.

The third is on wheelchair-friendly vehicles. I am glad that Minister has announced that there will be more London cabs that will be put into service for the convenience of those who are wheelchair-bound, especially those with higher backs. I had been wheelchair-bound for a few months and, therefore, I fully empathise with the convenience that is necessary; it is not just good to have. During that period of time, I used London cabs as well as Maxi cabs, and I have been told that, in fact, many of the London cabs that are added to the fleet are actually replacing the Maxi cabs that are going out of service at the end of this year —

Yes. The question is whether this is true because it appears that the net result is fewer of such disabled-friendly vehicles instead of more.

Mdm Chair, I thank Miss Penny Low for her three clarifications. On the first point about the legal entity and the taxation on SEs, I will convey the suggestion to the Ministry of Finance. We will see how we can promote social enterprise. On her second point about working closely between MOE and MSF, that is exactly why we are setting up ECDA so that you do not have to run to two agencies; you just go to one agency and we will appoint a point man to make sure we have the equivalent of a customer relations manager to deal with the respective constituency.

On the third question about the wheelchair-friendly vehicles, the plan is not to replace the Maxi cab. In fact, there were 10 London cabs. Now, they have a new model. We have brought in 15 and we will bring in another 15. These are essentially for the high-back wheelchairs, that means that the wheelchair is not collapsible and the motorised wheelchair is slightly different from the normal cabs. Most of the other cabs can take the normal wheelchair if they are foldable. They bring the person into the cabin and then they fold up the chair and place it in the boot. What we are particularly concerned about are those wheelchairs

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that cannot be folded; and also with the motorised wheelchairs, the motor takes up a bigger space than the normal wheelchair.

From 10 London cabs, we have 15 now running on the roads; we will have another 15 to make 30. In the second part of this year, we will also invite proposals for private operators to operate a dedicated fleet – these are point A to point B dedicated fleet of vehicles, to expand the options available to persons with disability using such high-back wheelchairs and also motorised wheelchairs. I must just add that in time to come, there will be also other elderly who may use such motorised chairs, not just for the disabled community.

Two points of clarifications. One, will the Minister consider rolling out public image enhancement programmes for early childhood educators, the way they do for social workers in the last Budget?

The second clarification, Minister earlier mentioned that they will do more to help the group of people who fail to meet the existing criteria by a bit as far as social welfare is concerned. I wonder if the Ministry is aware that there may be incidences or trend of social recipients who are trapped in an incentive trap. They currently do not want to earn a little bit more because they will lose out on a lot of social assistance. How are we going to resolve this matter of people who will want to see a gradual reduction in the incentives that they currently receive so there is motivation for them to break out from the incentives that they are currently receiving?

Mdm Chair, I thank Mr Ang Hin Kee for his clarifications and suggestions. The answer to the first clarification is, yes, we will want to do that, maybe in partnership with the Member. As I have said, it goes beyond pay and remuneration. It is also the image, the social status of our childcare teachers and the professionals in this sector. We should really see them as professionals in this sector, so we will see what we can do.

On the second clarification, I fully understand that there are some, what I call "kinks" in the benefits curve whereby sometimes just because your salary increases a bit, you may lose certain things. We will continue to iron out some of these kinks in the curve. For example, yesterday or the day before, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Dr Maliki announced the changes to the rental charges so that you would not have a case whereby just because your income went up by $10, you get charged more for your rental income. These are welcomed moves. Where Members find that there are such kinks in the help assistance

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given, let us know and we will try our best to iron them out.

Madam, I have three clarifications for the Acting Minister. Firstly, I am very glad to hear that the paid childcare leave will be extended to unmarried single mothers. This is something I called for during the PMO COS. Notwithstanding that, I would like to ask the Minister what is the rationale for not providing the same package of parenthood benefits, including the same duration of paid maternity leave, to unmarried single parents as their married counterparts. Is it because we want to send a signal that we frown on out-of-wedlock births? If so, I do not think this is the right way to send a signal because this is a complex moral and social issue that needs to be tackled in other ways.

The second clarification is, has the Minister considered the possibility that this shortfall in parenthood benefits for singles could have an inverse causal relationship with abortion rates, as it adds to the feeling of a lack of support for single mothers if they choose to keep their babies? And, thirdly, on ECDA, since the Government sees student care as an extension of childcare, can student care be brought under the purview of ECDA so as to better regulate and promote the industry?

Mdm Chair, I thank Mr Gerald Giam for his three clarifications. On the first issue, as the Member said, it is a complex issue, so there will always be some help that we give to married couples and there will be another package of help that we give to singles. We do not judge people by their status. We look at the person and ask if the person needs help. Even if scheme A does not fit, we will try scheme B; scheme B does not fit, we try scheme C. That is our operating modus operandi because we do not want to get involved in, as the Member said, all these complex issues. Even for single mothers, there are different types of single mothers. They need different types of help. Our job is to make sure that we give them the type of help that they need, rather than to pigeon-hole them or classify them very broadly, which sometimes does not work.

On the second issue, the answer is no. I do not have any statistics or information that this package of help has anything to do with the abortion rate. I am not sure.

For the third issue, let us consider this at a later point in time. Let me stabilise the work of ECDA, and then we can review. But rest assured that whether it is under ECDA or under MSF or under MOE, the after-school care

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service now is watched by both MOE and MSF together. If we want to build the facility in the school, we need to work with MOE, but you need the VWOs to work with the schools. So, no worries, we will work on this.

Mdm Chair, I have three clarifications for the Minister on the Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). In the LPA, there is a column that asks if there are people to be notified of the making of the LPA. Personally, I do not think this is wise because it gives the persons to be notified the wrong idea that they have a right to stop the LPA from being made for whatever reasons if they are not the ones who are given the LPA. That is the first one. The other thing is also the period of time that is taken to wait for these people to object is six weeks. I think it is very long. There are some instances where people just cannot wait.

Also, can Minister consider allowing the age limit of the person to be appointed as "donee" under the LPA, to be set at 18 instead of 21? In certain families, there are really no eligible persons other than their own children and these are children who are teenagers who could be possibly considered to be a donee for the LPA.

The other clarification is that although there is a clause that says that the contents of the LPA have to be interpreted to the person making the LPA – maybe because he or she does not understand English – notwithstanding that, the person making the LPA, usually the elderly persons and people who do not understand English, would still like to see them either in Chinese or in languages other than English. Would the Minister consider putting this in place as well so as to facilitate the making of the LPA?

Madam, I thank Ms Ellen Lee for her four suggestions. These are rather technical in nature. I will take them back to my legal staff and we will certainly give them serious thought.

But the Member's last point is most important – about the interpretation, and this is why we need lawyers to come and help us to interpret the LPA to those speaking other languages, such as Chinese, dialects, Malay and Tamil. Indeed, it can be quite daunting. Our elderly are not very comfortable with legal documents. To the elderly, they think they are signing away their right to make decisions, which makes them even more uncomfortable. Indeed, there are many cultural hurdles that we have to overcome.

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I hope everybody can do our part to help spread this message. The issue really is, by the time we need this, it is often too late for us to make that decision. We have the instruments in place and we hope to hit the correct part of the S-curve to take off like other countries. Our first two years' experience was similar to the UK – very slow take-up rate at the start. However, take-up rates rose quickly in the UK once there was a certain critical mass, a tipping point. We hope to get there soon.

Madam, two points. I heard the Minister say that there will be 15 more childcare centres in Punggol and I would like to enquire whether Punggol East is one of the locations. And yes, I would love to actively work with MSF to identify suitable sites in Punggol East for more childcare centres.

Point number two is I am heartened to know that the same amount of infant care leave, childcare leave and so on, are now extended to single unwed mothers. I also acknowledge the Acting Minister's reply to Mr Gerald Giam on the 16 weeks of maternity leave that could not be extended to single mums. I would like to take this opportunity to once again urge the Minister to consider it seriously because, as I have mentioned in my cut, marital status is not relevant because maternity leave is really for emotional bond building as well as physical recuperation for the mother.

Mdm Chair, I wish to thank Ms Lee. Yes, we will be working with the grassroots leaders on the siting of these centres. On the second issue, we note your point.

Mdm Chair, would the good Minister agree that the culture of adopting children could be advertised more fully in the public domain so that Singaporeans do know that they could consider adopting a child, then take steps to find out more? So, promotion of adoption as a culture.

Yes, I think we can make the information more available but as to how to do it sensitively and whether we call it promotion of the adoption culture – I am not so sure as yet. Let me give this some thought because I think the message on adoption has to be thought through carefully. I think the Member's intent is good. It is to let those people know that there is such an option available. To create awareness, that is alright. To create awareness is slightly different from an adoption culture, so I am just a bit careful

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in answering this. I agree that we should create awareness and let vulnerable families and women know that there is this option. We are in agreement on that.

Madam, two clarifications for the Minister. One is about the full subsidy for non-working mothers on a case-by-case basis. It is more productive if such cases can be assessed at the childcare centres, rather than ask the mother to see the Member of Parliament and make an appeal. Then the childcare centres will assess. Anyway, the childcare centres have to do due diligence. In the case I mentioned, they actually went to the staff of the childcare centre and explained. The staff told them to go and see the Member of Parliament. It may be more productive that such cases be assessed at the childcare centre.

The next clarification is on the point that no child will be denied childcare and kindergarten services even if the family cannot afford it. I have a case where the family's six-year-old daughter was stopped from entering the kindergarten class because of three months of arrears. And the strange thing is the family was on KiFAS the last year, and only stopped this year. I have made an appeal to PCF. I just want to let you know that there is such a case.

Mdm Chair, I thank Mr Png Eng Huat for his clarifications. On the first, we just have to be careful on the load for childcare centres. For simple cases, such as childcare subsidies, parents can apply directly at the childcare centres. For more complex cases that require some investigation of the social circumstances of the family, the childcare centres may be unable to do the investigation, and social workers or other professionals may do it instead. Most of the time, it is not just one particular problem that we are concerned with. It might be a symptom of a larger issue as to why they cannot afford the fees. We really need to go to the root cause to solve some of these problems. So, let us work with you on this.

I do not have the specific details on the second case. You can let us know and we will see how we can support the child to make sure that we reach out to every child.

Mdm Chair, we note the point. Today, we have some shelters that allow some of our teenaged unwed mothers to carry the baby to term. We understand where the Member is coming from and we will see what more we can do together.

The Minister highlighted the fact that there is a growth in transnational marriages. I just want to check, why did the pre-marital counselling fail the last time? Given the growing number of such marriages now, it is time for us to revive this because there are many challenges faced by these couples as foreign spouses need to deal with social habits, language, finances and even getting used to the mothers-in-law.

The second clarification is: how rigorous and proactive are we in the pre- and post-abortion counselling for women?

Mdm Chair, on Mr David Ong's first question, the frank feedback given to us was that the transnational couples did not like to be singled out. To them, couples are just couples. They are saying, "Why do you make an issue whether I am transnational or not?" We took their feedback and incorporated additional modules useful to them in the mainstream marriage preparation programme because most of the marriage modules will be relevant regardless of whether you are transnational or a Singaporean married to a Singaporean. This has given us a bit more success in reaching out to the transnational couples.

On the second issue, for those cases that are a bit more complex, after the abortion, we do follow up with them because not all of them are at the same state of psychological health. For those who need a bit more help, the social workers do follow up with them to provide post-abortion counselling and outreach as part of our social care.