Mr Speaker,
Like every Budget in recent years, this year’s Budget has a long title underlining our country’s looking to a better future. As the volume over the General Elections builds, many expected that the spending taps would be turned on during this year’s Budget. And we have certainly seen generous schemes and various vouchers announced across the board. Paid for by higher-than-expected corporate tax revenues, we see the introduction of the $100 SG Culture Pass, $100 ActiveSG credits, including private property into the Climate Vouchers scheme, hawker centre stall rental rebates, and even LifeSG credits for children under 18.
We don’t object to these schemes, as improving access to arts and cultural activities is something that we have advocated, particularly given rising ticket prices, and also easing the financial impact that raising children has on families in today’s ultra-competitive society.
But we can and must improve by ensuring that we have a Budget that is more targeted towards today’s social outcomes, and to have clearer and more significant investment in the social outcomes of tomorrow. By social outcomes, I mean the impact of our policies – especially our economic policies – on our societal well-being. Our people are not economic digits. GDP growth should not be the goal. Instead, we have to re-align our goals to make sure that our country is a flourishing society on a liveable, healthy planet. And to ensure that we leave behind the foundation for our children and grandchildren to flourish.
Strength and abundance, not fear and scarcity
And to improve our resilience to take us there, we have to come from a position of strength and abundance, not fear and scarcity. I first raised the potential of a strengths-based approach during last year’s motion on mental health, and repeat the call that we can apply this to our society at large. There is abundant research on individual flourishing that shows that we should work on our strengths, rather than just focusing on improving weaknesses, and that this approach predicts higher levels of resilience. It is also positively correlated to well-accepted resilience-related factors like positive affect, self-efficacy and life satisfaction.
Additionally, Barbara Fredrickson’s ‘Broaden and Build’ model shows that positive emotions in individuals put them in pole position to explore new avenues of growth, building skills and resources, and it increases coping and survival. This theory has been applied to the work context to generate good outcomes, and there is no reason to suppose that societies too cannot benefit.
Contrast this to theories of scarcity, where perceptions of, or coming from, a place of scarcity may end up leading us to react more strongly to situations and events, or increase competition to unhealthy levels.
I therefore believe that on a societal level, we should approach our policies from a position of strength, not scarcity. What do I mean by this? Here are some real-life examples. Like all constituencies, WP-held divisions organise events for residents throughout the year, and we have to do so with no access to tax-payer funds through the People’s Association, or even venues like Community Centres. Instead of sitting around bemoaning how unfair this all is, our teams forge ahead with planning community events to be held in spaces that still welcome us, such as void decks and multi-purpose halls. In Buangkok, our Christmas event takes this a step further. We identified early on in the term that our community possesses an abundance of strengths such as kindness, love and justice, and thus we crafted our event to make full use of these community strengths. Our residents turn up each year en masse to drop off gifts of essentials such as oil, rice, noodles, and cleaning items, which we collect, and this benefits residents of Cheshire Home in Serangoon Gardens, and it is so special to see familiar faces every year and to hear the latest updates on their families.
And lest we are accused of politicking or electioneering, another example from our Sengkang community would be one of our condos, where residents were kind enough to share their experiences with me. The MCST operates on a tight budget, and fully acknowledges this and works within their limitations. But instead of focusing on what they lacked, they have over the years fully harnessed their creativity and zest in ensuring that their compound is well maintained and beautifully decorated with festive updates. These efforts range from taking the initiative to source for landscaping pieces from dissolving country clubs, and more recently commissioning a snake sculpture from a dragon dance dragon manufacturer in China, ensuring a cost-efficient but beautiful way of getting their grounds ready for Chinese New Year.
Revisiting a development dashboard
To bring about a social budget, we should revisit the idea of a development dashboard that I first brought up during Budget 2022. To reiterate, this dashboard would measure how well we are doing as a society and economy, and gives a good account of our human, social and natural assets. Aside from my calls to use the dashboard to measure how well Singapore is doing in terms of poverty reduction, social mobility and wealth distribution, the dashboard should also be used when developing and announcing the Budget package each year. It would thus be used to spell out not just the economic, but also social elements of spending, with clear descriptions of how specific spending allocations are designed to lead to positive social outcomes.
The dashboard and its targets should be developed together with the public, especially as we already have attempts made to get a wider segment of Singaporeans to share their perspectives on development in exercises like the recent Forward Singapore. The next step would be to formalise this so that we collect qualitative and quantitative data from Singaporeans on what they would like our social KPIs to be, and crucially, to publish the results of these findings as part of our dashboard. These could include collecting and publishing data such as time-use studies for informal carers – a call I made in my maiden speech –, how fulfilled Singaporeans are with the career path they have chosen, or how easily they feel they are able to achieve their dreams and aspirations.
Taken together, these measures can be compared alongside more traditional economic measures to help the public better understand the trade-offs necessary to maintain a balance between measures of societal well-being and economic and business demands. To be clear, it is not always an either/or scenario, where economic progress comes at the cost of well-being, but neither is it the case that economic growth is the only way in which a community can flourish. ‘Development’ then, would be our measure of how we can achieve our social goals while remaining an attractive place to do business, and to also know at what point we start to see negative trends creeping in due to economic and social policy shifts.
To develop these social measures for our dashboard, we can make use of a mechanism similar to Citizens’ Assemblies which I spoke about in last year’s Budget. These would comprise groups of citizens randomly selected from but representative of the population, to learn about, analyse, and make recommendations on this topic in the form of a report which the Government would have to publicly respond to. They may be supported by advice from experts, but it is up to them to carefully deliberate and propose which measures to include.
While the Government would ultimately be the final arbiter in whether or not to adopt the proposed measures for the scorecard, the process has the added benefit of being transparent and democratic, and provides a formal avenue by which the wisdom of crowds can be used to inform policy-making. The Government also would have to defend their position where they disagree with the recommendations made, contrasted to the one-way format of the consultative processes we are more used to.
Applying the dashboard to inequality
Mr Speaker, I am not saying that the Government does not pay attention to social outcomes when devising the Budget. Singstat’s data show that the Gini coefficient of employment income per household member in 2024 was at the lowest since records began in 2000. But I believe that if we asked the man in the street if they feel better off, the picture is not so rosy.
One possible explanation is that the highest and lowest quintile of income-earners have seen real wages increase, but the large middle section not so much. This is why many would tell you that they do not feel like they have done well. Another reason is that our measures of wealth inequality are still struggling. The UBS Wealth Report published in July last year shows that our Gini measure of wealth inequality rose by 22.9% since 2008, and has now overtaken economies such as Hong Kong, Indonesia and South Korea. Wealth matters, because people are now living longer and care costs are expected to increase, and this gives rise to a feeling that depending on employment income alone will not suffice, particularly in our golden years.
The dashboard we propose should thus have measures of both economic and social inequality, because both are intertwined. Social inequality is clearly linked to both income and wealth inequality, and having consistent measurements – such as those used by sociologists – allows us to get more familiar with how well we are doing in this area. It is why I spoke about the dangers associated with the PERCEPTION of elitism and lack of social mobility in my maiden speech, the possible potential-limiting behavioural consequences of this, and I believe the same concerns still apply today. Time and again, whether during our Sengkang Conversations town hall sessions or our regular engagement with residents, we are told of parents’ and grandparents’ worry for the next generation, of whether their children and grandchildren will be able to keep up with what feels like an increasing rat race and pressure cooker society.
This is especially so if you consider the increasing number of vouchers and assistance schemes that we have today in Singapore. While nobody will fault support being given in challenging times with ever-rising costs of living, we have to be careful about the inadvertent impact that these vouchers may have on our social fabric. Former NMP Eugene Tan commented recently that there is an irony in large amounts being doled out each year, in that it confirms a popular perception that Singapore is too expensive to live in. Academics Linda Low and Pang Eng Fong in Monday’s op-ed in the Straits Times go even further. They worried about whether such policies will foster an entitlement culture and entrench a rentier society.
The idea that a large proportion of our population now relies on vouchers to mitigate everyday spending significantly undercuts many decades of the Government telling us that Singapore is not a welfare state. What impact do these schemes have on how we see ourselves as a nation? Does it continue to encourage seeing our country through a lens of scarcity, resulting in Singaporeans being afraid from taking risks in their careers to found potentially ground-breaking enterprises because they do not know whether the vouchers will continue the next year?
Applying the dashboard to participation in society
Next, I hope that we can apply the dashboard to measure how engaged our residents are in society. Humans are social creatures, and it has been demonstrated that participation in society and high quality connections are essential ingredients for individuals and societies to thrive. Aside from the findings of the Singapore 2022 Quality of Life Survey that citizens that feel they have a duty to vote and have power at the ballot box have higher levels of wellbeing, studies have also found positive correlations between participation in society and improved governance, greater social cohesion and greater capacity building and learning. On the individual level, it is also well-documented that there are physical and mental health benefits to participating in society.
Yet such participation is usually only possible where individuals feel that they have the room to do so, and are not constantly worrying about daily stressors – financial or otherwise. Scores of societal participation over time can also thus give us valuable insight into how well we are doing as a society, socially, and somewhat indirectly, economically.
Applying the dashboard to mental health
We have acknowledged that we are currently facing a mental health crisis. Yet mental health is a direct indicator of social development, affecting participation in society, and wellbeing as a whole. Ill mental health also ends up costing economies in the long run both in terms of the provision of treatment and support, but also loss productivity.
Thus, beyond the mental health strategy’s release in late 2023, we should be developing meaningful targets that are indicators of where we want to be for mental health. And as I pointed out previously, mental health is not just the absence of mental ill health, but also the presence of factors and conditions that encourage thriving, and our indicators should also reflect measures of positive mental health.
While various organisations and entities such as IPS conduct occasional surveys on mental health, we can benefit from more consistent and consolidated data, standardisation of questions, and commitment to annual measures, with results to form part of our dashboard. We can take reference from what is already being done in other countries. For example, in the UK, the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness found that while actual initiatives to combat loneliness are necessary, also important are reporting requirements and a clear programme to develop evidence around “what works”. This is especially so as different countries have different cultural and historical contexts which also influences the issue. To make data more comparable, the UK Government is working on a loneliness harmonised standard.
In Singapore, we also know that the Ministry of Health too has been working to combat social isolation, known to be a risk factor for ill physical and mental health. Yet further study is necessary to understand how this problem presents itself in Singapore. For example, 2021 data from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health show that it is actually seniors who live with family members who are the most socially disconnected, contrary to popular belief. This illustrates why regular data collection and publication is needed.
Applying the dashboard to our readiness for the future
Finally, applying our developmental dashboard to our future. Two key areas that spring to mind would be how we invest in and support our children, and how we are doing in our response to the climate crisis and long-term sustainability goals.
For children, delivery on different elements of children’s development increasingly cuts across various ministries and agencies. While education is key, it is not the only measurement of how we are doing with our younger generation. Apart from doing well in education league tables, how well are we preparing our next generation for their future jobs and careers – which require more creativity and challenging of the status quo? How well are our children sleeping, eating, and are they getting the opportunity to enjoy their childhoods rather than stress about the next milestone examination in their way? We already track many data points such as school absenteeism rates with some breakdowns like housing type, but data on a centralised dashboard can help the public note how investments in and changes we make to our education, health and social sectors have benefited our children.
Iceland’s 2024 Youth Study offers one approach. The study was a comprehensive and holistic effort to collect and analyse data on the welfare, health and attitudes of children and young people in Iceland, in order to support evidence-based policymaking. Topics included mental health and well-being, social connections and activities, digital safety and social media usage, family support, school environment and physical health. This is off the back of its Prosperity Act enacted in 2022, with coordinators assigned to support families from pregnancy onwards. A key component of this initiative is to develop a dashboard to offer an overview of children’s health and well-being, with data publicly available, thus promoting transparency and enable researchers, policymakers and the general public to engage with the information.
Here in Singapore, there is no reason for us not to do something similar, especially as we start to gain data and insight from the recently launched Grow Well SG.
On sustainability, our schemes have to address the huge challenges facing us in the form of the climate crisis, and measures should be assessed on their impact. As I noted in 2022, many climate measures are not reflected in GDP – planting a tree for example does not change anything. Yet, our climate adaptation and mitigation schemes are key parts of our development journey, and should form a key part of our scorecards, and will assist in ensuring our agencies are laser-focused on the intended impact of various programmes. One example is the expansion of the Climate Vouchers scheme announced last week. While occupants of private residences may rejoice, how much carbon mitigation are we achieving through these vouchers? How do we guard against these vouchers inducing demand for household appliances where items are replaced before they reach their end of life? Additionally, what is the rationale for allowing 2-tick LED lights to be purchased? Now that we have a decent set of data since the scheme was launched, what does analysis of this data review about the carbon emissions impact of the scheme?
Using the dashboard to measure outcomes, not just inputs
In conclusion, there is benefit to developing a dashboard with economic and social measures that is published along the budget each year.
It is not the first time that we have heard sentiments that there is more to measuring our progress as a nation than GDP. And I believe that there are many untold strengths and areas of abundance that remain yet untapped in us. Having the dashboard would be a channel through which we can promote a paradigm shift to meaningfully move to look at Singapore’s assets and situation from a mindset of strengths and abundance, not fear and scarcity, and this will stand us in good stead as we look to the next lap.
