Debated in Parliament on 8 Jan 2025.
Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for Law how has the Legal Aid Bureau made provisions to offer non-digital access to its services to applicants who may be illiterate, of low-income or not digitally able.
The Legal Aid Bureau (LAB) provides in person services at the Ministry of Law Services Centre (MSC). The staff there can assist those who are illiterate or not digitally savvy or speak languages other than English.
Applicants can take the means test at MSC and receive legal advice or legal aid if successful. Those receiving legal aid, which entails assistance with court proceedings, can be guided by MSC or LAB staff, either in person or by phone.
Legal advice is also available in person at MSC, or through video conferencing at any of the nine ServiceSG centres. Clients of Family Service Centres (FSCs) or Social Service Offices (SSOs) can also receive legal advice via video conferencing at 29 FSCs and 24 SSOs.
Ms Phua.
I thank the Minister of State and I am really happy with that response. I would like to suggest that perhaps the Ministry of Law, and especially LAB, communicate this a lot more to the ground. Because often us as Members of Parliament, even after we make an appeal for legal assistance or aid or advice, and specifying that our our residents are not digital savvy, they are not proficient in English, they are elderly, and so forth, we will still get a template reply to "please refer to the portal". So, I thought, if there are already services available such as these, that we can actually communicate a lot better.
And also to the ground, perhaps resource even more the SSOs or the Community Clubs because they are also manned or staffed by public servants and so, the security or privacy considerations are better managed.
So, I ask for therefore better communication and really looking to this challenge on the ground.
Sir, I take the hon Member Ms Phua's point. As a matter of system, a digitally illiterate person should not be sent to digital portals. As I mentioned in my reply, we have a strategy and we, in fact, devote resources to help these digitally illiterate persons. And I will certainly bring the feedback back to my colleagues.
Order. End of Question Time. Ministerial Statements. Minister for Digital Development and Information.
[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]
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