Bringing Different Communities Together: The People’s Association Story
5 April 2018
4.00pm – 5.30pm. Registration from 3.30pm, seated by 4.00pm
URA Building Level 8 Seminar Room
1 SIP CPD pt, 1 SILA CPD pt
Resources
Lecture Poster (PDF: 1.12MB)
Lecture Report (PDF: 1.15MB)
Lecture Transcript (PDF: 1.04MB)
Lecture Video & Photos
Source: Centre for Liveable Cities
The annual Chingay provides a platform for people of different social and economic backgrounds to interact. Source: Chu Yut Shing, flickr
The PAssion card allowed the PA to use data analytics to better engage the community. Source: TNP
Community centres provided space to conduct sewing classes for the community in the 1960s. Source: National Archives SIngapore
Former PA Chief Executive Director Tan Boon Huat conducted an open, candid and interactive Question and Answer session with lecture attendees. Source: Centre for Liveable Cities
Synopsis
The People’s Association (PA) has been instrumental in building a harmonious and cohesive society in Singapore for over five decades. Today there are thousands of people involved in grassroots organisations and participating in various PA programmes. In achieving this success, the PA constantly remakes itself and develops new means of engaging communities in line with social change.
Lecture Report
“[During the 2000s] I discovered that more
than half of our Residents’ Committees (RCs)
did not have minority members. They were
supposed to engage the community. … I
[asked], ‘Have you made the effort?’ And if
you have made the effort, you must continue
making the effort because PA is about crosssectional representation…”
- Tan Boon Huat, former Chief Executive Director, People’s Association
Never lose sight of the mission, and always keep an eye on the analytics.
This was the message former Chief Executive Director of the People’s
Association (PA) Tan Boon Huat, had for civil servants and potential leaders
at a wide-ranging CLC lecture.
Tan, who headed the PA from 2002 to 2010 and was a Deputy Secretary in
the Ministry of Home Affairs, also called for more inter-agency cooperation
within the government. This would help avoid the “political pushback”
that happened during the 2011 General Elections in Singapore, when the
electorate expressed its unhappiness with various government policies.
“The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority dropped the ball, nobody was
looking at immigration numbers properly. The Housing & Development
Board had a backlog of housing, and in public transport, [there was]
competition for limited space,” he said. “Nobody was watching the numbers.
Watch changing demographics and circumstances. What you did in the past
may not work now or in the future.”
Tan added that data analytics might have optimised train maintenance
routines and reduced breakdowns, as well as help prevent recent reports
of fraud in grant schemes. What would also help civil servants in their work
is for government agencies to forge connections at the community level
through the PA.
In April 2005, PA introduced the PAssion Card to help give a sense of the PA’s
outreach and effectiveness. The card gave insights about the people whom
the grassroots and community clubs were engaging—demographics like age,
ethnicity, their frequency of participation and their residential locations. It
allowed the PA to use data analytics to remake itself and develop new means
of engaging communities in line with social change.
“I would advocate that agencies engage with PA; go out and meet the people.
Don’t forget there are always emerging generations—younger people plus new
migrants, who don’t understand some of the basic tenets of why Singapore
does what it does,” he said. Some examples Tan cited included co-payment
health insurance schemes, and traffic management schemes such as Electronic
Road Pricing and Certificates of Entitlement for motor vehicles.
“Before there is a crisis, engage the people and grassroots well in advance. So,
in a crisis, you already have made the connection, the crisis resolution would
be a lot easier.”
It is also important to stay focused on the mission. While the PA organises
many activities to bring people together, interact and build social capital, there
needs to be a clear end goal of national unity. Tan noted that some grassroots
events offer little real engagement with the community and cultural
performances are not well explained.
“There’s a difference between the means and the ends,” he said. “Sometimes
we end up confusing the means with the ends. Sometimes [PA staff and
grassroots leaders] just focus on organising a slick event. You want to
organise something, think about the end you want, what you want the people
experiencing it to go away with. [Sometimes] you lose the purpose, [which is]
to understand differences and embrace differences.”
This goal of bringing different segments of Singapore society together
through social, cultural, educational and athletic group activities has been the
historical role of PA. Likening the organisation to a “ministry of national unity”,
Tan said the PA is, and will continue to be, a key instrument of nation-building
in Singapore.
“In Singapore, we’re not interested in becoming a melting pot. What ‘melting
pot’ means is, we don’t worry about our past, we just become one kind of
people for the future. But if you listen carefully, our government leaders
always say: you preserve your cultural heritage, but you look at our common
spaces and we build a national identity that way.”
While grassroots groups in the past were mobilised to build roads and other
infrastructure in rural areas, today’s groups serve as emergency response
teams and community patrols. The local community is also engaged in the
management of community clubs, which is a key factor in their success
“[The community clubs] could all be run by [the government], but the missing
ingredient would be ownership by the community,” said Tan. “[With the SARS
health crisis in 2003], because we involved the community so much, people
felt confident that things were under control and would get better. If it was all
done by the police or civil defence, there’s a different tenor to it.”
Beyond communal lines, a society can also be divided by economic, education
and social divergences. In Singapore, this has hindered interaction between
different social groups, says Tan, and is something PA should keep in mind
going forward.
“PA strives to tell people of all walks of life: there are different social orbits,
we know them, and PA will try to bring people of different orbits together,”
he said. “To understand that there’s diversity but try to build up that
common space.”
Written by Alvin Chua. This report first appeared in the
Apr 2018 Better Cities newsletter.
About the Speakers
SPEAKER
Tan Boon Huat
Former Chief Executive Director
People’s Association
Mr Tan Boon Huat was Chief Executive Director of the People’s
Association (PA) from 2002 to 2010. During his tenure, he
introduced business analytics to improve customer service,
which widened the community outreach of the PA and
modernised operations. He was also Deputy Secretary in the
Public Service Division, where he led the fundamental change
of the Civil Service staff appraisal system and in transforming
the Civil Service remuneration system. Tan Boon Huat was the
returning officer for three parliamentary and two presidential
elections from 1997 to 2006.
MODERATOR
Louisa-May Khoo
Senior Assistant Director
Centre for Liveable Cities,
Ministry of National Development
Louisa-May Khoo previously served as an urban planer with
the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Strategic
Planning Division in the Ministry of National Development (MND).
She was involved in crafting Concept Plan 2001 and Master Plan
2003 and oversaw reclamation, residential and industrial landuse policies in Singapore. Her research interests navigate the
intersections of policy and governance, and urban social issues,
with a focus on housing, diversity and encounters.