ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE - FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 1998 TO 31ST MARCH, 1999 - (Paper Cmd. 3 of 1998)
Sir, today in Singapore, the planning and delivery of community and social services occurs at three levels. The first is at the national level where the Ministry of Community Development studies overall trends, ascertains needs and plans and implements programmes nationwide. The second is at the district level. With the advent of Community Development Councils last year, we now have the equivalent of local governments to cater to the needs of residents at the CDC district level. Finally, we have the community groups and volunteer welfare organisations. These organisations target specific groups or neighbourhoods in order to serve the community. Sir, clearly, there is a need for coordination and cooperation across these three tiers. And it already occurs to some extent. MCD has enlisted the support of many helping hands by working closely with the VWOs. CDCs are doing the same, particularly with volunteer organisations in their respective districts. However, it is the third axis, that between the Ministry and the newly established CDCs that is perhaps not as strong as it ought to be. A case in point is the provision of Before-and-After-School Care services. MCD has a plan to roll out BASCs islandwide. It then invites VWOs to indicate their interest in running these centres. Most, if not all, the CDCs have similar plans to offer BASC services. They too are approaching VWOs to collaborate. It seems to me that much duplication can be avoided if the Ministry shares its long term master plan for BASCs with the CDCs. The implementation can then be a joint effort. Indeed, the Ministry should not just share but also jointly develop these master plans with the CDCs and possibly the VWOs. MCD would have the macro perspective of overall trends. CDCs would bring the micro perspective of local needs and constraints. Together, MCD and CDC can identify VWOs with the expertise and interest for specific projects and support them with resources. In this way, each party is able to add value according to their strengths. This approach applies not just to BASCs but also to other services aimed at the aged, the disabled and the young. Ultimately, the many helping hands must work in concert if we are to reap the greatest benefit for our community. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister what plans there are to step up cooperation and coordination with CDCs and VWOs in the planning and implementation of the community service programmes. The Minister for Community Development (Mr Abdullah Tarmugi): Sir, I thought I should stop the debate here for a while to reply to some of the questions. I am not too sure whether I can finish answering everyone by the time the "guillotine" for my Ministry comes into effect. Yesterday we were concentrating on the aged, but today apparently we have shifted to the other side of the fence by going to the children. We have questions on juvenile delinquency, child abuse, and child care centres. I would like to start with Dr Vasoo's questions yesterday on juvenile delinquency and also Mr Shriniwas Rai's and Dr Yaacob Ibrahim's. These three gentlemen raised some questions and concerns on the issue of juvenile delinquency. 1.15 pm Sir, the issue of juvenile delinquency is a very complex one. There is till now no single, quick fix solution to the problem of juvenile delinquency in any community. And in any community, no matter at which stage of development it is in, there is the problem of juvenile delinquency. The best approach is a multi-disciplinary and multi-pronged one which involves the community, the Government, the VWOs and, most importantly, the parents. So we involve the schools, social service agencies, the Police, the community, teachers, preachers, friends and, most importantly, as I said, the parents. At the local level, we already have a network involving the different agencies. At the national level, I am not too sure whether Members are aware that there is an Inter-Ministry Committee on Juvenile Delinquency chaired by the Minister of State for Home Affairs. This Committee looks into all problems of juvenile delinquency which are brought up by the various Ministries and coordinates the efforts of the various Ministries. There are two approaches which the Government takes on juvenile delinquency. One, is the preventive and development programmes approach, and, two, the reinforcement and rehabilitative programmes approach. In terms of preventive programmes, we have an intensive public education programme to make people aware of the dangers of juvenile delinquency and also how to prevent juvenile delinquency from happening. We have linking of schools with MCD and social service agencies. We have in schools a checklist for teachers and also for VWOs where they can identify children or students who are at risk and would need help so that schools can refer them to FSCs or professional social workers to be counselled. They can be helped. Then of course there is the Before-and-After-School programme. In terms of enforcement and rehabilitation programmes, we have the Guidance Programme for Police Caution Cases, the National Youth Council's Streetwise programme and networking between MCD and social service agencies to provide counselling, support and supervision for juvenile delinquents. Dr Yaacob asked how do we keep our children and teenagers occupied so as to prevent them from becoming juvenile delinquents. As you know, there are many programmes organised by the People's Association Youth Movement, the National Youth Council, and the social service agencies to keep the children occupied. Even the BASCs will keep them occupied to ensure that they keep themselves away from bad peer influence. And we will be looking into more ways to see how children could be distracted from bad peer influence into activities which are wholesome and useful for them when they grow up. There is one interesting point which Dr Vasoo and Mr Rai brought up, and that is, empowering schools to send children beyond parental control (BPC) cases to the Homes. I am reluctant to support this and I would not want to advocate this proposal. Let me explain. If we do this, we will run across problems with differing standards of assessment by teachers or principals. Some principals may be more than happy to send their students direct to the Homes. But some other principals or teachers may have more stringent standards; in other words, they will not want to send them to the Homes. We may have very differing standards and we may also encourage schools to be less stringent in trying to help their students because it is an easy avenue for them to get rid of problem students. The most important thing is that it is not fair for us to place this very heavy responsibility on the schools. Whether we like it or not, they may suffer the stigma of being sent to the Homes. The thing to do is to empower the parents instead, not the schools. We must put the whole responsibility of looking after the children on the parents. Therefore, we need to reinforce parental responsibility. We have to ensure that parents get the help and the knowledge parenting knowledge to look after their children and to bring up their children properly. There are avenues, Sir, in the community which parents can turn to. They can go to the Family Service Centres for help. They can come to my Ministry for help, advice or counselling. And if a child is really recalcitrant, the parents can lodge a complaint. The parents must lodge a complaint to the Juvenile Court and the child may be placed under statutory supervision or admitted to an approved Home. It is a serious matter before a child can be sent to a Home. So I do not think we want to empower the schools to send children direct to the Homes. I think it is unfair to them. Sending of children to the Homes should be a last resort, something which we would not do and something which we only do after trying other ways to solve the child's problems. Mr Shriniwas Rai and Dr Yaacob also asked about the Boys' Home and measures to improve the Boys' Home. Members must have heard about the recent riot which happened in the Boys' Home. It is something which we did not want to happen, but it happened. The Singapore Boys' Home, as has been mentioned yesterday, is over 100 years. We face problems of staff. There is overcrowding. But, more importantly, the profile of the boys that are admitted into the Homes has changed over the years. Previously, the number of boys with history of violence or involvement in violent crimes was about 20% but now it is about half, or 50%. In other words, the kinds of children and teenagers that are being sent to the Homes are different. About 90% of these boys have previous secret society or gang connections. Since the attempted break-out, MCD had further upgraded the security of the Home because security was the immediate concern. We had brought in the Prisons Department. We had sought the advice of the Police on how to increase the security of the Home. We even had to employ CISCO officers as guards because, previously, we had only commercial guards. We had some of our internal procedures reviewed and tightened our management and control of the boys in the Home. There will be a new Home for the boys to replace the Boys' Home. It will be ready by the end of the year. And in the new Home, we hope that things will be better. The environment will be better, there will be more facilities, more space, and security will be better. We would also improve the staff/resident ratio. So be assured that we have looked at the problem very carefully. We will continue to monitor the boys there and we will see to it that the conditions in the new Home will be so much better than the old one. Amendments to the Children and Young Persons (CYP) Act are being thought of by my Ministry. We will be amending the Act to include provisions for enhancement in the treatment of young offenders and those who are beyond parental control. There will be new sentencing options which will be available and will provide the courts with a wider choice in selecting an appropriate treatment for the kinds of cases that come up to them. In the amendment too, we will see to it that not only parents but also family members are more involved in the rehabilitation of children. I would like to thank Mr Rai - I am afraid he is not here - who has offered to help review the CYP. The CYP has in fact gone through a lot of discussions between my Ministry and the courts, the Police, the AG's Chambers and even the GPC for Community Development. I intend to table the amendments in this House later this year. However, I would be pleased to receive views and suggestions from the NMP in the meantime. Mr Rai also suggested that instead of sending children to court, he would rather that a tribunal, similar to the Tribunal for the Maintenance of Parents, be set up to deal with juvenile delinquency. This is to divert the juveniles from the juvenile delinquency system and also not to criminalise the boys. We support the use of diversionary measures wherever possible and we too believe that the juvenile court should be the last resort where boys should be sent to for treatment and rehabilitation. But we do not think that a tribunal is necessary because a tribunal, as proposed, will also include a judge and a judge will preside and thereby it would be similar to a court or at least a quasi-court. The NMP also suggested that there should be social workers to sit with the judges in dealing with cases. This is happening, Sir. In the juvenile court setup, we have a court system but we also have a magistrate who sits with at least two members of the panel of advisors who are laymen (not lawyers), who may be teachers and social workers to advise or hear the case together with the judge. They serve to advise the magistrate on the possible treatment of cases and to discuss the case with the magistrate. Prof. Low also asked about the Boys' Home. I think I have answered some of his concerns. He suggested that there should be better programmes in the Home. I am glad to say that in the new premises, there will be a classification centre where all new committals will begin their rehabilitation programme. Each boy will be assessed by a team of officers and an individual treatment plan will be designed for each inmate and a contract worked out. In other words, there will be a more sensitive classification system, so that each inmate or each committal boy will be better looked after in that sense. 1.30 pm As regards staff/resident ratio, I agree with Members that the ratio of 1:40 for the existing homes is simply unacceptable. We will look into this and we will improve the staff/resident ratio in the new complex. On child care centres, Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay asked whether there ought to be stricter control over the usage of child care centre premises. He mentioned that some of the child care centres, instead of administering the programmes as determined by my Ministry, come out with a lot of enrichment programmes. They even refuse to take in extra students because they feel that the students will not be "enriched" enough if they take in more students. I would like to inform the Member that there are child care regulations which stipulate that child care premises cannot be used for any purpose, other than the ordinary conduct and business of a child care centre. Our officers visit these centres frequently and, in fact, there is an annual report. In other words, we have an annual assessment of each centre and we use a list of criteria to evaluate the centres. The Ministry, however, does allow child care centres to conduct one approved enrichment programme, in addition to the normal programme for children enrolled in the centre. Assoc. Prof. Low also mentioned the shortage of child care places. This problem apparently arises every year, that there are not enough places and there are long waiting lists. But the truth of the matter, as I have answered at a previous sitting, is that there are enough places and, indeed, some centres have vacancies. The problem is that parents want to choose more popular centres, and they want to choose preferably centres below their blocks. Therefore, there are some centres which are over subscribed and there are other centres which are empty or which have vacancies, simply because parents tend to choose centres which are more convenient to them or which they prefer. So if we look at the child care centre situation at the macro level, there are enough places. The supply is enough for the demand. But if we look at each child care centre, there seems to be some mismatch between what the parents want and what the centres can provide. Right now, there are 464 child care centres providing places for 38,000 children. Another 40 new child care centres for an additional 3,000 children will be provided this year. We will continue to provide sites. We will continue to monitor demand and supply and, if need be, we will continue to build more child care centres. Prof. Chin Tet Yung feels that MCD should take a more positive role in planning and coordinating the provision of facilities in child care centres. Mr Zulkifli calls for a national child care centre system where Government will be involved in the setting up and running of child care centres. As of now, actually Government is very deeply involved, as I mentioned earlier, in the development of child care centres. It has regulations for these centres. It sends officers to check and monitor the progress of these centres. MCD actually adopts a three-pronged approach in developing child care centres. First, to ensure that there is availability and accessibility of child care centres; second, to ensure that child care centres are affordable; and, third, we want to ensure the quality of the child care centres. We project the demand of child care centres, review such projections annually, and we take into consideration HDB's housing development plans in new estates. So there is already close coordination between my Ministry, HDB, URA and the Land Office in terms of location of child care centres and availability of sites for child care centres in the estates. HDB will indeed be incorporating child care centres and other social facilities in its building plans for new estates, and, as far as possible, to have such facilities built in tandem with the development of the estates in the future. Therefore, once we have the estates, we will have the child care centres and other social facilities built up at the same time. In terms of quality, MCD ensures that there are enough training programmes for child care centre teachers and supervisors, training programmes by accredited agencies. We set the curriculum for the training to ensure standards. MCD also gives training awards to those who are interested in pursuing a full-time career in child care centres. The award comprises a grant for fees and allowance during the duration of the course. And on completion of the course, the candidate is allowed to work in any child care centre. In other words, there is no bond. The person is not bound to work in any centre. He is free to work in any non-profit organisation's centre or in a private child care centre if he or she wants. Prof. Chin asked for tax rebate for child care courses. I am afraid there are no such rebates, but SDF, I am told, provides 80% funding for course fees, whether it is basic course, intermediate course or advanced course. In addition, SDF also funds 50% of the course fees for first aid and other enrichment courses. I think there is really no need for tax rebates for people to go to child care courses. Coming to the supply of child care centres in Woodlands, Prof. Chin commented that MCD was slow or rather sluggish in the development of child care centres in his constituency. The Member must be aware that there are currently 12 child care centres providing 920 child care places in the Woodlands estate. The total enrolment in these 12 centres is about 90% right now, and there are, in fact, still 50-odd vacancies in these centres. As regards the long waiting list, I have given the reasons just now. They are mainly for the more popular centres in the ward. Assoc. Prof. Chin may not be aware that for some years, Woodlands had only two centres and the utilisation of these two centres was actually poor. Consequently, private and non-profit organisations were actually reluctant to set up child care centres in the estate for some time. Despite this, my Ministry pushed for the development of more centres in the estate and as the estate expanded. And within two years, between 1996 and 1997, 10 new centres became operational, and 10 more with a total of 780 places are being planned for the estate. Out of this number, I am told that six are already under construction and will be ready by the end of this financial year. If demand still exceeds supply despite all this building, my Ministry will consider building more child care centres in Woodlands. Dr Toh See Kiat asked for more child care centres in the workplace. I cannot agree with him more on this. It is very important and I think it is very convenient for parents to have child care places in their workplace. Indeed, we have been working toward this. We have been trying to do this for quite sometime now. The benefits of child care centres in the workplace are immense. I think nobody can argue against it. It is mutually beneficial for the employer as well as for the employees. And it is also good for the bottom line of the companies. The Government has been setting an example in this. It has taken the lead in providing child care centres in workplaces. There are about 30 workplace centres in various Government departments. Actually, there are a lot of incentives for companies to set up child care centres at their premises. There are financial subsidies, for example, which we give to non-profit organisations, and which we also extend to firms. In addition, the firms are allowed to claim expenses incurred in capital expenditure and subsidies given to employees for child care as tax deductive expenditure. They may also claim industrial building allowance on capital expenditure for the renovation and conversion of their premises. In fact, there are already enough incentives for firms to set up child care centres in their buildings, and we will continue to find and to encourage more companies to build such centres in their workplace. Madam Claire Chiang spoke very extensively on the disabled, and she made a rallying call. I am thankful for that. I think MPs at the local level can help as advisers to their grassroots organisations. They can network with other VWOs. They can network with CDCs to ensure that there are enough help or social agencies or institutions to help the disabled in their constituencies. It has always been my Ministry's philosophy that the disabled can live meaningful lives and can be integrated in the community. In fact, they ought to be. It is better for them to be integrated into the community, rather than being put aside in institutions or being hidden at home. She mentioned three areas of focus - training, employment and informal support networks. In terms of training, we actually have many agencies serving disabled people, which also run training programmes, eg, Rainbow Centre, Down Syndrome Association, Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped, Canossian School for the Hearing Impaired. They have training programmes for disabled people. 1.45 pm I agree with the NMP that employment plays a very important role in the integration of disabled people into the community. My Ministry, in fact, together with NCSS set up Bizlink Centre in 1988. So the Centre is 10 years old now. It is now known as Bizlink Centre Singapore Limited. It is a central body to coordinate employment assistance for disabled persons in Singapore. It works together with the Ministry of Education and also the Ministry of Labour and provides vocational assessment and assistance and also job placements for the disabled. Indeed the Centre's data bank has about 2,000 potential employers which we can draw on to provide employment to the disabled. We feel that there is scope for Bizlink to work together with CDCs to reach out to the community for job placement/assessment of the disabled. We will see that this happens and we will encourage such coordination between Bizlink and the CDCs and the community. The Government also funds vocational training programmes leading to Certificates of Vocational Training for Basic Computer Applications, Office Practice and Service Skills for the handicapped to ensure that they have the skills for employment. To encourage employment of disabled persons, the Government also provides financial incentives to employers, like tax rebates for modifications which they make in the workplace to enable the disabled to work, and for reimbursements of the first 1 1/2 months of the disabled employee's salaries, as well as transport and food allowance, for the disabled worker, where needed. In other words, there are incentives for employers to employ the disabled and we would certainly encourage employers to look into the disabled as a source of manpower. The public sector actually is the largest single employer of the disabled people. As at end of last year, we have about 224 disabled persons employed in the public sector and we will increase that number when we find suitable disabled to work in the civil service. But the greatest obstacle to the disabled, as I mentioned this afternoon, is the prejudice against the disabled in the community, that existed in the community itself and this is something I think we have to tackle through public education, through the public knowing more about what the disabled can and cannot do. She also asked about the recommendations of the Advisory Council for the Disabled. It is quite a long list, Sir. I could provide the NMP with the list if she needs it. It is quite a long one and most of them have been implemented. With regard to schools, where possible, disabled children are integrated in normal schools. There are no barriers, physically, to the handicapped and schools have been cooperative. Where there are handicapped in the school they make sure that mobility and access for the disabled are made as easy as possible, where necessary and appropriate. But we feel that it is not always advantageous for the disabled children to be sent to normal school because some of them are mentally disabled. Therefore it may be better for them to attend special schools instead of going to normal schools, where they can be better looked after, where their needs and learning can be tailored more to their level of understanding. On barrier-free environment, she did mention that the BCD has got a Code on Barrier-free Accessibility in Buildings. It was I think revised in 1995. The code requires new buildings to have barrier-free features such as toilets for the handicapped, ramps with gentle slopes and kerb ramps which slope upwards from the road to the building. In other words, there is a gentle slope from the road to the building walkways instead of a sharp angle. New buildings have to conform to the requirements of this code and old buildings would have to comply with these revised requirements when they undergo major renovations. HDB, I am told, has also incorporated accessibility features in the new HDB buildings as well as existing buildings which are being upgraded in the Main Upgrading Programmes. On the provision of ground floor units for families of the disabled, HDB does allocate ground floor flats where they are available and possible for families of the disabled. In the rental flats, they are also given ground floor flats and also flats at lift landings and when they transfer their flats they are also given priority for ground floor units. With regard to sexual abuse of disabled individuals, this is something which we all abhor. It is right that we feel very strongly against this, and I agree. I share the NMP's concern about physical and sexual abuse of disabled individuals, particularly the young ones and the girls. The provisions in both the Children and Young Persons Act, as well as the Women's Charter, protect all victims from abuse, including the disabled. In fact, the amendments to the Women's Charter provide an added avenue through which help can be obtained, for example, the Charter now allows persons to apply for a protection order on behalf of an abused victim. In other words, for the disabled person who could not make any report, a protection order can be applied for on behalf of that person by other persons. I think the NMP also asked about the central registry for disabled. She may want to know that there was a Registry of Disabled People or CRDP which was established by the then Ministry of Social Affairs in 1969. But there were some inherent difficulties in maintaining the Registry because of people being reluctant to report, infrequent reporting and very unreliable reporting. Therefore, in 1988, the Advisory Council on the Disabled recommended for the CRDP to be discontinued. But currently, I am told that welfare organisations working with the disabled themselves maintain their own registry of the disabled who are under their charge and they update these registries regularly. So if the Member is interested in knowing who are the disabled and where they are, perhaps she could approach these organisations directly. Dr Lee Tsao Yuan talks about a national cohesion scheme for women. This is quite a different subject from what the other speakers have been talking about. But I agree with the sentiments about the need for cohesion. There are avenues for males but apparently there is none for females. There is something about being in the trenches together, eating together, wallowing in the mud together for National Servicemen. They do set up this bond between the rich and poor, between the Hokkien, the Cantonese and the Malay and the Indian or whatever race. So I agree with the sentiments. The question is whether NS should be extended to women. This question is one which Government is still looking into. It has not dismissed the idea. But there are several issues which we need to look into very carefully. For example, the reasons for having NS for women in the first place. Well, she has given one reason, to encourage cohesion and bonding among women. Other issues are whether we should enlist all women or some of the women, and at what level. Who should be enlisted? Which Ministry should be in charge? What would the enlistees do? These are issues which have to be carefully looked into and, as the Member mentioned, the scheme ought to be very carefully formulated. I am glad to say that we shall look into her suggestions, to see whether a modified form of National Service can be implemented for some women in Singapore. But notwithstanding that, NS is not the only way to bring about social bonding and social cohesion among women. They could engage in social service, they could go down to the constituencies and join the CDCs; they can join as Civil Defence volunteers. They can help in the self-help groups. Indeed there are many opportunities for women to get together and help out others. I think through such involvement in the community, our girls would be able to interact with Singaporeans from all walks of life and from all income groups. Besides deriving personal satisfaction, they somehow very quickly learn to understand the plight and circumstances of the families and individuals whom they work with and whom they help. They are able to empathise with those who come from completely different socio-economic backgrounds, but they share, nevertheless, a common identity of being Singaporeans. Dr Teo Ho Pin talked about quality of life. The definition of quality of life can be very nebulous. Different people have different definitions of what a good quality of life is. I grew up in an urban slum, and I used to have a neighbour who was a hawker, who had eight children. To all intents and purposes, he considered his life as of good quality. He said, "I have got no problems. I don't owe any mortgages. I don't have money in the bank but I have enough to eat." To him, quality of life is good. And yet I know of someone who earns $25,000 a month, who keeps on complaining he has not got enough and that his quality of life is somehow very rotten. So the definition of quality of life indeed can vary between one individual and another. But even then I agree that we should not neglect the development of social and community infrastructure and we should not just measure quality of life by material standards alone. When the PM presented his ideas on Singapore 21 last year, he said that Singapore needs to go beyond economic and material needs and reorient society to meet the intellectual and emotional, spiritual, cultural and social needs of our people. In this regard, my Ministry will continue to develop policies, programmes and infrastructure for individuals to lead a more meaningful and balanced life through promoting community bonding and social cohesion and inculcating family values, promoting voluntarism and caring for the young, the aged and the needy. On the issue of quality of life indicators, again this is something which we have to think about. We have to work at definitions. We have to work at measurements and at the indices. We have now on-going a survey on the state of families in Singapore. It is being carried out by my Ministry. We hope it will produce some important social indicators for Singapore. If Members have any proposals on what kind of indicators ought to be included in this index, my Ministry would be most happy to receive it. 2.00 pm Working hard, playing hard - that is the motto of Dr Toh See Kiat. In MCD, we believe in playing hard but, alas, we work harder. We agree that Singaporeans work hard but we also agree that they must learn to make meaningful use of their leisure. They must have some balance in life. In this respect, the Singapore Sports Council, which is under the Ministry, has done quite a lot, in terms of promoting sports at the community level Sports for Life and also the SPEX 2000 programme. With regard to the Sports for Life programme, since its launch in September 1996 from Sports for All programme, we had made a survey last year on sport participation. It was revealed that the percentage of regular sport participation had increased from 24% in 1992 to 34% in 1997, within five years, so a 10% increase within five years. But what is significant is that 72% of the participants spend more than 45 minutes in each session. This is very significant because it shows not only the regularity of participation in sports but also the length of each session. And for 72% to spend more than 45 minutes is indeed significant. The Singapore Sports Council has launched a public education programme to promote the message that sports is not only fun but it is also beneficial to one's fitness and to oneself. The SSC has now embarked on a second phase of this national public education campaign. The mass media will organise road shows, exhibitions, to bring home the message that sports is fun, it is easy to take up and it is healthy. The campaign will impress on Singaporeans that we do not have to be fit to take up sports but rather sports will develop fitness. In addition to what the SSC does, PA also has many leisure activities in the CCs. Quite apart from sports, it has got a sea sports centre, karaoke, outings, dancing, barbecues, etc. So indeed there are many opportunities for Singaporeans to play. Just like the proverbial horse which we want to drag to the waters to drink, unless the horse wants to drink nobody can force it to drink. Therefore, we have enough outlets for Singaporeans to play; it is up to the Singaporeans themselves to take up these opportunities. The Member also wants to know statistics on children attending counselling or children with problems. I am afraid we do not have the details but what we have are statistics from the Institute of Mental Health. According to them, there are 16,253 attendees seeking child and adolescence psychiatric outpatient services at the child guidance clinics. We do not know the details. If the Member is interested, perhaps he could approach the Ministry of Health to pursue the matter. Dr Ho Tat Kin proposed that we consider reaching out to the poor to make them aware of the kinds of services that are available. I agree with the Member of the need for us to reach out to the poor. In fact, it has been our experience, not only in MCD but also in self-help groups and among the VWOs that the group which you try to help is the very group which is the hardest to reach, for example, the low income group. I am glad to say that last year my Ministry embarked on a joint project with the Marine Parade CDC and the Tanjong Pagar CDC to launch a public education programme on social services to reach out to households living in 1- and 2-room HDB flats. In this programme, volunteers from the CDCs, RCs and VWOs were enlisted to go door to door, we go and knock on each door, literally reaching out to the community, to explain to the 1- and 2-room flat residents of the various programmes and services that are available for them to take advantage of. My Ministry also has established a booklet entitled "We're Just A Call Away" which contains information on available services and schemes which families can avail themselves of. The booklet can be used by volunteers to brief and advise families. There are also two other publications: one is "Helping Low-income Families The Singapore Way" and the other is "Reaching Out - Directory of Services to Help Low-income Families". These two publications can also be used by social service providers, schools, grassroots organisations for their own reference and also for them to pass on the information to their residents and students. The CDC has also launched a National Helpline in January this year. This is where people can contact the CDC directly, a one-stop information provider, as it were, for them to ask the kinds of help available to them. This has made things easier for people. Instead of going to several organisations, they just call on this Helpline and they get all the information they need. I would like to thank Dr Vasoo for lending his moral support, again, for MCD to get more funds and also for VWOs. He also mentioned "compassion fatigue". I sincerely hope that this would not happen because once we have compassion fatigue, then there go our plans for having more volunteers and more people to care for others. I do hope that compassion fatigue will not occur and will not happen in Singapore. The various Ministries dealing with VWOs (MCD, MOE and MOH) are working very closely with NCSS to monitor the impact of the current economic downturn on social services and the ability of the VWOs to raise funds and to anticipate the sort of support that VWOs may need. But VWOs themselves, I think, can help themselves. We really feel that they are still able to raise funds, provided they have good programmes, their aims are clear and the programmes are perceived by the community as worthy of support. For example, the recent President's Star Charity collected more than $2 million whereas last year they collected only about $1 million. So it is more than double what they collected. Indeed people are still able and they donate even in bad economic times like this. They can also look into how they can streamline their services further, review or re-prioritise their needs and expenditures like what the Government and the private sector are doing. And they may also want to consider more creative ways of raising funds. Indeed, this is the time for them to be more creative, to examine themselves and to face the whole situation as a challenge for them, which can be very exciting. And they can look into other avenues, and more innovative ways of raising funds. I want to assure Members of this House that Government has not cut back on its budget for approved programmes run by the VWOs which receive Government funding. And Government will also not be cutting back on its development programme for community-based social services such as FSCs, child care centres, and BASCs. In fact, there will be a 14% increase over FY97 in the provision for the development and operating expenses of the VWOs. With regard to CDC funding, whether we can extend the 3:1 formula to VWOs, if there is a real need and Members can convince the Minister for Finance - he is not here now - I think he might consider the proposal very sympathetically. On voluntarism and professionalism in social work, Mdm Chiang mentioned about the need for people to recognise what social work really is. We need both types of workers really - the professional social workers and the volunteers. Indeed, in our many helping hands approach, we need a variety of such workers. There is a wide range of services requiring a variety of skills. For example, at one end, there is the befriender type where we need volunteers. There is also the more administrative duties where we can get via paid staff in the voluntary welfare organisations. Then at the extreme end or the high end, you may call it, where we need real professional social workers to deal, for example, cases of child abuse, domestic abuse or family casework. These really need professional, knowledgeable and skilful workers. So we need volunteers and we need social workers, and we need those in- between too. And there is room actually for a whole continuum of services to be served by these people. They need different knowledge and skills. She is right that the public is somehow unclear about what a social worker really is, and there is this confusion also that social worker equals a volunteer equals a counsellor, equals anybody who works in a voluntary welfare organisation. The public is largely unaware of what social work actually involves, and that it is a professional service rendered by trained persons with specialised knowledge and skills and these are to be differentiated from acts of charity carried out by volunteers. The professionals will have an increasingly important role as our society develops further and the social service sector expands. My Ministry will help bring about better recognition of social workers by way of investing in training and improving service conditions and public education about what a social worker really is. In the area of training, for example, my Ministry has been sponsoring specialised training for social workers which includes training in working with family violence victims (this is training in specific areas about family violence) and training for new services such as counselling first-time offenders in Police caution cases. We are also working with the NUS Department of Social Work and Psychology and with various training institutions to increase the specialised and professional upgrading opportunities. MCD's staff itself will be attending upgrading courses to equip them with professional skills to perform their work properly. At the other end of the scale, the voluntary sector will also be given more resources for training of the volunteers so that agencies can upgrade the skills of the helpers and those working in the organisations. MCD is also studying how best to achieve a good standard of practice, especially in the most critical area of social work interventions, like child abuse and domestic abuse. We will look into an ethical code of practice and the need to regulate the practice in those critical areas so as to ensure that, especially in cases where the clients are vulnerable, the social workers who handle the cases are properly qualified, that they know what they are doing. These are critical areas and this can, in fact, either help the victims or cause more problems for them, if the social workers are not knowledgeable and skilful enough. MCD will also work with the Singapore Association of Social Workers and NCSS to look into the development of the social work sector as a whole, in terms of manpower planning and standards. There is always the challenge to attract volunteers in Singapore. We have found that somehow people are more charitable when giving donations of money because it is a one-time commitment. You want $10, I give you $10; you want $50, I give you $50. But if you ask me to commit one hour a week, it is a long term commitment. So it is much more difficult to get people to volunteer their time and energy than getting people to donate. But it is a challenge which we will face. We will need to calibrate carefully between passion and compassion and whether there needs to be some reward for volunteers. We need to balance the two. I know some of us really abhor the idea of rewarding volunteers. And at the other end of the scale, some people feel that they may be volunteers but, at the same time, they are human beings too. 2.15 pm The last question by Mr Iswaran was whether there could be closer coordi- nation or cooperation between the CDCs and MCD. I would like to assure the Member that indeed we work closely not only with CDCs but also with the other agencies I mentioned earlier. In particular, he mentioned about the BASC programme. MCD has got a Social Service Development Master Plan for BASCs, FSCs and all the other centres. We have met with the officers of the Tanjong Pagar and Marine Parade CDCs and we shared with them our Master Plan for BASCs, FSCs, CDCs and the other centres. We will be holding similar sessions. In other words, we will be working together. It is not as if we work on certain directions and the CDCs work on another. We have regular dialogues. We have regular consultations in the planning and implementation of our social service facilities. MCD is currently working with the CDCs on a number of projects, including public education on social services. We are also working with them on the development of social service facilities, as I mentioned earlier, such as the BASCs and the provision of services, such as food rations to the needy and meals-on-wheels project. We welcome proposals from the CDCs and advisors on the services that are of priority and which they feel would be needed for the community.