20 Major Government Policy Errors

robertteh SG

The following are "20 Major government policy errors" (posted to Feedback Unit since 2002) which are still largely ignored and not solved:-

(1) Bureaucracy in civil service.
(2) High costs of living due to tax-and-recover policy e.g. medical, utilities, housing, transportation, education, etc, etc
(3) Failure of the Growth Triangles
(4) Affective divide caused by restriction on freedom and intellectual space
(5) Work site safety problems (Despite Hotel New World Collapse COI recommendations) e.g. Nicol Highway collapse.
(6) Failure to Deliver the promised Swiss standard of living
(7) Asset enhancement scheme fiasco
(8 ) Unit trust investment fiasco
(9) Foreign relation fiascos
(10) Failure of economic restructuring to value-adding strategy
(11) Double-charging on lands (paid by taxes) in sale of HDB flats and triple charges on vehicles.(retaining excise duty even after COE/ERP)
(12) Meritocratic education that neglected broad-based education.
(13) Mother tongue - CL1 admission fiasco
(14) Reaching World Cup soccer league by 2010 - no sign of getting near.
(15) Investment losses by thousands of citizens from CPF funds.
(16) Backfiring of public wage restructuring on economic competitiveness.
(17) Lack of accountability and transparency in investments of citizens' monies in overseas investments.
(18 ) Loss of economic competitiveness due to high costs.
(19) Neglect in promoting entrepreneurship
(20) Neglect in nurturing the domestic sector of economy.

Dr. Vivian perhaps wants to get his YPAP to debate the twenty problems on coming YP debate on 30.9.2006 and invite some forumers to join in the debate.

One topic which was worth debating by the YP is the High Cost Of Living.

If ministers are truly talented and deserving their million-dollar salaries and 6-month bonuses, then, they should solve the above-stated long-standing problems and not try to sweep them under the carpet.

ShutterBug SG

Tell them to take their "Feedback Unit", and shove it right BACK up where it came from, and DON'T bother taunting us, the people, with so called "feedbacks" when literally NONE was ever even tallked/discussed about much less taken into consideration!!!!!

Up Yours Men!!

robertteh SG

SOLUTION NO. 1 (20 Major Government Policy Errors)

The talented ministers should solve the 20 Major Problems caused to the citizens by their persistent conceptual policies which failed to be implemented as follows:-

The traditional business set-up is the boss-centred management. Such an organization structure consists of: "The boss, senior management staff, administrative personnel, operational departments, duties, roles, etc."

Such a boss-centred set-up, apparently is adopted by our government who justified it by expressions like leadership and talents.

In such a boss-centred enterprise, the efficiency is limited by the personal knowledge, past training and experiences of the boss himself.

All the ministers and civil servants will have to work to the wishes of the boss and are unable to exercise their talents or abilities to the fullest potential, capabilities or responsibilities on larger issues.

In this globalized technological environment, a truly talented government must extend their areas of technical or technological excellence or knowledge application in every field.

A more effective set-up of the cabinet would be to decentralise tasks, roles, duties and responsibilities to allow every one of his staff to compete more effectively.

This is generally known as delegation or distributive leadership which is not seen happening to many of our ministries.

A distributive leadership should be adopted by the government so that every staff and every department will be delegated roles and duties and dare to act with authority to improve all aspects of government and not subjected to hidden wishes of the top leaders.

All the goals, objectives, duties and responsibilities should be laid out in work processes which can be sequentially processed like lego through the Call Centre in documentation processes in sequence thus:-

(1) Serial No. (2) Date (3) Code [Dept] (4) In - input (5) Out - Output.

There is no doubt given an effective distributive Organization Structure delegating out tasks to be easily performed in sequence of "input" and "output" work processes as set up in work forms.

In this way, the various government ministers, MPs and civil servants will then try to do something to solve the "20 Major Problem" caused by conceptual leadership controls of the past including the high-cost problem.

Just send a strong signal to all ministers and buck up so that they will not hide behind the protective shield of the leaders and deny solutions ot problems.

Set an example that Singapore ministers can change to distributive model of government. For years since 1970s, people have been waiting for the government to Upgrade its government to one which will benefit all citizens and not just their own kind or their own surpluses.

Just do it - before it is too late !!!

<Precious> SG

reyes SG

KNN! U oni know how to complain and say that this or that problem not solved. If u tink u r so smart, u should quit this attitude and offer yr suggestions to solve them instead of juz kpkb. Bloody bo liao!

i think the one who kpkb is you, coz you type 3 sentence and yet offer no arguement. grow up in a democratic country and stop behaving like a north koreans.

robertteh SG

SOLUTION NO. 2 (20 Major Government Policy Errors)

Ask any successful bosses about their secrets of success and they will most likely tell you they owe their successes to some secrets like intuition, insight, foresight or one of the following factors:-

1. Focus and Consistency.
2. Positive Work Attitude.
3. Foresight & Insight
4. Supportive Environment.
5. Passion & Determination.
6. Coordination, Teamwork and Bottom-up Approach.
7. Adaptation to Changing Environments.
8. Creativity and Entrepreneurship
9. Leverage on Strengths and avoidance of Weakness. (Sun Sze Art
of War)

DELEGATION OF TASKS THROUGH PROCESS MANAGEMENT

The government similarly has been governing the country over the past 40 years conceptually with a lot of hype about leadership, foresight, insight, passion or determination etc which no matter how crucial refer to personal attributes but not tangible acts which can be applied by the organization as part of daily works to attain success.

There are also a mixture of conceptual management which vary from Human Relation Theory, to CPA Financial Control, Planning concepts and premises, Operation Research, Quantitative and Scientific Approach, Breakthrough Principle, Action Learning Principle, Uniqueness Principle, Standard Operating Procedures (ISO), Sun Sze Art of War etc.

So far despite all the human resource and financial conceptual management, many ministries are not seen as having solved all their problems as reported in the "20 major government policy errors"

There is something lacking in all their academician learning like organizing, control, processes, comparison, coordination, commanding, and correction.

No wonder, many policies cannot be carried out due to complexities, uncertainties created by conceptual leadership and foresight approaches.

Typical organizational behaviours can be summarized as follows:-

1. Jumping to conclusion

2. Beating around the bush

3. Running down the boss

4 Going around in circles

5. Dragging their feet

6. Passing the buck

7. Climbing the ladder

8. Wading through paperwork

9. Pulling strings

10. Throwing their weight around

11. Stretching the truth

12. Bending the rules

13. Pushing their luck

So unless there is a recognition of importance of delegation of roles and responsibilities and setting up of lego-like work processes, there will be continuing persistent problems and more policy failures.

Such conceptual management like leadership, Asian values, Confucianism have already been exposed as the root cause of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and business malpractices as revealed in collapses of major corporations like Worldcom, Enron etc.

PROCESSING MANAGEMENT

So there is a critical need to ensure all major tasks like lowering of costs of living and economic restructuring to create a more vibrant economy especially for the domestic sector of the economy will be carried out in result-oriented hands-on processes delegated properly and accountably to respective departments and ministries.

The government will be failing to upgrade or compete if it continues to govern with conceptual denials like "we have done it our way for the past 40 years" or "if you think you can do it, please stand for election" The fact is there exist many problems which have caused dropping of standards of living of majority of citizens while costs are climbing day after day.

Many traditional tasks are today overtaken by processes e.g. banking, trading, travel-ticketing, designing, transportation, logistics, stock-trading, accounting, telecommunications, government services, court administration etc.

The Ministry of Manpower and EDB should jointly work out job-creation programs can carry out their tasks of job creations with "input" and closed as "output" in 2-way communication task-lines with closing action taken at weekly interval.

COORDINATION AND KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION

All ministries should oversee quality-time-cost (to lower costs and increase productivity) control of multi-functioal tasks in a hands-on manner e.g. revenue, expenditure, cost saving, enforcement, logistics etc.

In the age of global technological competition, all ministries should upgrade their past conceptual policy approaches and manage all tasks accountably and responsibly with hands-on monitoring set up on objective work processes which can be successfully delegated with efficiency and productivity.

robertteh SG

SOLUTION NO. 3 (20 Major Government Policy Errors)

In this globalized knowledge-based era, no doubt, it is critical to keep up with technological advances.

It is not a matter of the need to change mindset as such approaches are simply too rhetorical or conceptual.

Beside technological advances, there exist many other opportunities for competitiveness. There exist vast array of opportunities where existing knowledge that can be tapped to be put to good and innovative use to increase marketability or products and efficiency. Even mundane knowledge like better housekeeping, cooking, art, computer application and usage, M&E and project management can be turned into an excellence and competitiveness.

Spring should promote efficiency and productivity at practical work level affecting everyone if we are to maximise use and application of existing knowledge innovatively as part of their daily works.

So it may be conceptual to promote re-training or upgrading courses to upgrade workers' skills, or entrepreneurship without such work-level integration. Many workers who have completed their retraining have complained their being unable to find jobs even with retraining. This shows that the schemes might be too conceptual and not integrated to practical work-level processes to make the impact.

Furthermore, the usual management environment seems to be aimed at promoting the top-level management workers with little regard to empowering the workers to apply knowledge and bring about an innovative knowledge-based interactive work culture.

At the present moment, there are simply too many look-good worker's training courses, WIT, QCC, Work Studies, SOPs and ISO certifications etc for public relation reason.

The agencies should promote practical application of knowledge as part of the workers' daily works through on-the-job exposure and interactions.

A new direction should be set to create pro-knowledge application work processes and management environment to facilitate on-the-job knowledge application.

Detailed technology application can be arranged in sequence so that workers will be guided to apply knowledge as works are performed.

Currently enterprises tend to be managed superficially based on some look-good academic, legal, human resource, financial or accounting controls with little integration of management to technology application.

It is essential to set up work processes related to design, system, engineering and technology monitored by a call centre, with management being able to oversee solutions to technology applications and solve all problems and constraints in engineering, product development, material, labour and resources.

Spring should set new directions which will translate existing look-good policies and workers' training schemes to be more practically oriented and integrated to daily work processes.

To upgrade the economic competitiveness and technology application Spring should go into in-depth integration of their schemes with workers' daily work processes. Only by relating training or upgrading to workers' daily works will it create the necessary impact and nurture a innovative work culture.

A lot more no doubt can be accomplished if existing WDA and Spring's workers' retraining and economic retructuring can be integrated to on-the-job knowledge application as such schemes will then be understood and impact the workers.

NewAge SG

mmmmmm to change the structure of the government will be very hard. all forms of MNS has a hierachy structure though some are taller than others. U difinitely cant tear the whole structure doen thats for sure u can only shorten it.