Public sector told to shed up to 8,100
jobs
To use manpower better, agencies
are asked to trim staffing by 3% annually over the next 3 years or
pay a surcharge
OVER the next three years, Government agencies must cut their staff
by 3 per cent annually - or cough up $10,000 a year for each extra
officer.
The measure, just announced by the Finance Ministry, applies to a
pool of about 90,000 public sector officers. It excludes teachers
and the Defence Ministry.
Meant to help ministries and statutory boards use their manpower
better, the new framework took effect from July 8 and may lead to
the vanishing of some 8,100 jobs, the Business Times (BT) reported
yesterday.
Though not an 'exercise in blindly reducing headcount', the
ministry told BT, it will require agencies that do not cut back
sufficiently to pay a 'headcount surcharge' of $10,000 a year for
each officer above the 3-per-cent limit.
According to the Finance Ministry, the surcharge would add up to
less than 2 per cent of ministries' current expenditure on
manpower, even if staff numbers are unchanged after three
years.
Also, the 3-per-cent figure 'is less than the annual average
attrition rate - resignations, retirements and other separations -
of ministries and statutory boards,' it said.
In his Budget Debate roundup speech in March, then Deputy Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said the government was considering a
'headcount tax', to counteract 'some slackening' since a headcount
freeze ended in 1996.
Under the new plan, 'ministry groups - ministry headquarters, their
departments and statutory boards assessed as a group' should seek
to cut total headcount by 3 per cent each year in Fiscal Years
2004, 2005 and 2006.
However, numbers should not be cut 'just for the sake of meeting
the reduction,' the Finance Ministry noted. The aim is not to
'simply remove current officers and require the remaining officers
to work harder'.
It said: 'The reduction can be by way of productivity improvement,
lower recruitment, job redesign, re-prioritisation of functions,
streamlining of services, and so on.'
The Government has previously spoken of a need for measures to curb
the rise in civil service staff numbers.
Total headcount of ministries and statutory boards grew 17.4 per
cent from 1996 to 2003 after a headcount freeze by the Finance
Ministry was lifted.
Agencies have been issued guidelines to help them scrutinise their
functions and their manpower use. Just how and where to make the
adjustments will be left to individual ministries.
The new move does not affect the beefing-up of the teaching
service.
In his National Day Rally speech last month, Prime Minister Lee
said that by 2010, the government hopes to hire 1,000 more teachers
for primary schools, 1,400 more for secondary schools and 550 more
for junior colleges
WAH... SPF to cut jobs if so since MHA is included? I think only
MINDEF and MOE Education Officers are exempted.
