Has he been sleeping on his job all these years? And as usual, blame Sporns' "high expectations" again woh! Expect more Sporns to be turned away when they wanted to make poodle reports?
MHA taking measures to ease shortage of Home Team officers
By Ca-Mie De Souza, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 August 2008 1755 hrs
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SINGAPORE: Job redesign and aggressive recruitment are some measures the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is taking to ease the shortage of Home Team officers and boost morale.
Second Minister for Home Affairs, K Shanmugam said a study last month found that in some areas, officers felt "overstretched, strained and overstressed".
He was responding to questions in Parliament on the manpower situation in the Home Team on Tuesday.
Dealing with the public and the increased traffic at the checkpoints are some areas which the minister said have taxed the Home Team.
At the Woodlands Checkpoint, officers have had to work overtime, while others have been redeployed there to cope with the increased demands.
=> Cos of unbridled FTrash influx?
Adding to the workload is the post-September 11 security climate, managing the security of several major high level meetings in Singapore such as the 2006 International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Bank meeting and the ASEAN Summit last year.
In addition to that are incidents like the escape of terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari and the attempted escape of criminal suspects from the Subordinate Court.
So a human factor study was initiated last month to look at operational fatigue and the level of workload and resources within the Home Team.
Mr Shanmugam said: "They have found that the stresses and strains within the system are within acceptable limits, but they have identified a few areas where they feel we are not optimising the contact point between the stress. That is necessary to make any job interesting, and at the same time, making sure that the officers are not overstressed."
Mr Shanmugam said that so far they have tried to cope with the increased demands through outsourcing and introducing technological solutions. But he stressed that as with any security system, what the team needs is enough good officers.
While resignations have increased due to the economic boom last year (not cos of low pay?), he said last year's civil service pay review helped stemmed the outflow. And the resignation rate of senior officers for instance, though higher, stands at a manageable 3.7 per cent.
Mr Shanmugam added that the resignation rate of junior officers has gone down from 3.7 per cent to 2.3 per cent.
Mdm Halimah, MP of Jurong GRC asked if the headcount freeze in the Civil Service has affected the Home Team.
In his response, Mr Shanmugam said: "The number of people employed in the Home Team has in fact increased over a period of time, but the demands on the Home Team probably has outstripped even that increase."
"We have instructed the Home Team departments to step up recruitment. We are also reviewing our employment criteria and job scopes to see if we can accept new sources of manpower in specific areas. For instance, we have already started re-employing retired officers," the minister added.
He added that the committee of psychologists and scientists who are conducting this study have also proposed best practices and reviewed system interfaces to minimise human oversight.
In fact, the Finance Ministry has given the assurance that there will be adequate resources to meet increased demands.
As for mitigating human error at work, Mr Shanmugam said the committee has also highlighted a "near miss" reporting system used in many industries.
A "near miss" is an unplanned event that has the potential to go wrong, and identifying it allows problems to be surfaced and improvements to be made early.
He added: "The Home Team is looking into refining the existing system of 'after action reviews' to ensure that mistakes and learning points are passed on to all officers.
"The Office of Chief Science and Technology Officer in MHA has also embarked on a review of system interfaces to make them more user-friendly and compensate for human oversight." - CNA/vm
MHA taking measures to ease shortage of Home Team officers
By Ca-Mie De Souza, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 August 2008 1755 hrs
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=260 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=right width=20> </TD><TD align=right width=240>
</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD class=update> </TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
SINGAPORE: Job redesign and aggressive recruitment are some measures the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is taking to ease the shortage of Home Team officers and boost morale.
Second Minister for Home Affairs, K Shanmugam said a study last month found that in some areas, officers felt "overstretched, strained and overstressed".
He was responding to questions in Parliament on the manpower situation in the Home Team on Tuesday.
Dealing with the public and the increased traffic at the checkpoints are some areas which the minister said have taxed the Home Team.
At the Woodlands Checkpoint, officers have had to work overtime, while others have been redeployed there to cope with the increased demands.
=> Cos of unbridled FTrash influx?
Adding to the workload is the post-September 11 security climate, managing the security of several major high level meetings in Singapore such as the 2006 International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Bank meeting and the ASEAN Summit last year.
In addition to that are incidents like the escape of terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari and the attempted escape of criminal suspects from the Subordinate Court.
So a human factor study was initiated last month to look at operational fatigue and the level of workload and resources within the Home Team.
Mr Shanmugam said: "They have found that the stresses and strains within the system are within acceptable limits, but they have identified a few areas where they feel we are not optimising the contact point between the stress. That is necessary to make any job interesting, and at the same time, making sure that the officers are not overstressed."
Mr Shanmugam said that so far they have tried to cope with the increased demands through outsourcing and introducing technological solutions. But he stressed that as with any security system, what the team needs is enough good officers.
While resignations have increased due to the economic boom last year (not cos of low pay?), he said last year's civil service pay review helped stemmed the outflow. And the resignation rate of senior officers for instance, though higher, stands at a manageable 3.7 per cent.
Mr Shanmugam added that the resignation rate of junior officers has gone down from 3.7 per cent to 2.3 per cent.
Mdm Halimah, MP of Jurong GRC asked if the headcount freeze in the Civil Service has affected the Home Team.
In his response, Mr Shanmugam said: "The number of people employed in the Home Team has in fact increased over a period of time, but the demands on the Home Team probably has outstripped even that increase."
"We have instructed the Home Team departments to step up recruitment. We are also reviewing our employment criteria and job scopes to see if we can accept new sources of manpower in specific areas. For instance, we have already started re-employing retired officers," the minister added.
He added that the committee of psychologists and scientists who are conducting this study have also proposed best practices and reviewed system interfaces to minimise human oversight.
In fact, the Finance Ministry has given the assurance that there will be adequate resources to meet increased demands.
As for mitigating human error at work, Mr Shanmugam said the committee has also highlighted a "near miss" reporting system used in many industries.
A "near miss" is an unplanned event that has the potential to go wrong, and identifying it allows problems to be surfaced and improvements to be made early.
He added: "The Home Team is looking into refining the existing system of 'after action reviews' to ensure that mistakes and learning points are passed on to all officers.
"The Office of Chief Science and Technology Officer in MHA has also embarked on a review of system interfaces to make them more user-friendly and compensate for human oversight." - CNA/vm
