| Doing
more with less |
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A grand total of $736 million
in savings was achieved in FY04
(1 April 2004 to 31 March 2005) as
a result of public agencies’ active participation
in the Economy
Drive (ED).
This is a noteworthy feat as the savings represent
2.3% of the total cash budget for FY04 and are higher
than the total savings of $687 million for FY03.
Moreover, in FY04, the agencies were operating on
a trimmer budget than that of previous years due
to past ED efforts.
The following are some of the key ED initiatives
that have reaped excellent savings for the Public
Service.
Public sector agencies have been aggregating their
demand for common goods and services to get better
value for money and reduce duplication in procurement.
Reverse auction, an online bidding process where
suppliers compete to offer the best price, has achieved
about 9% in savings. It was used together with demand
aggregation (DA) for the Service-wide acquirement
of electricity supply, fire fighting equipment,
paper, personal computers, photocopiers with maintenance
services, and courier services.
“DA enhances my capability to provide better
services and products to my users,” said Mr
Chow Meng Pong, Logistics Officer from the Police
Logistics Department.
“The DA initiative also enables me to tap
on the expertise of DSTA
(e.g. in reverse auction). On our own, our tenders
are not large enough to attract interest for reverse
auction.”
There are now over 200 Service-wide DA period contracts
loaded into GeBIZ, the Government’s e-procurement
system, for public agencies to cut orders from.
Most government agencies have outsourced their desktop
support and IT infrastructure management functions
to IT vendors.
Individual agencies will acquire their own services.
For most agencies, the cost of such services represents
a significant portion of their yearly IT expenditure.
In April 2004, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and
the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
(IDA) mooted the block tender concept. The block
contract has since achieved a total of $6 million
(or 46%) in cost savings for the public sector.
“The 10-month project had been a rewarding
one and it has resulted in cost savings that exceeded
our expectation,” said Mr Ong Hong Leng, Chief
Information Officer of the Ministry of Law.
Public officers at all levels have suggested and
implemented a wide range of ED initiatives.
One such initiative is reviewing the telecommunication
needs of the Singapore Police Force (SPF).
Previously, a single handphone subscription plan
was applied to all officers regardless of their
operational requirements. However, it was observed
that ground officers who actively engage with the
public in
the course of their duty chalked up considerable
airtime compared to other officers.
SPF decided to provide the specific group of ground
officers with a subscription plan that offered more
free airtime. The result: cost savings totalling
$653,000.
MOE also undertook a review of its IT contract for
schools. The latest IT Support for Schools contract
was awarded at a significantly lower price as compared
to the previous contract.
MOE saved $13.75 million in FY04 by:
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providing
specifications that focused more on outcomes
rather
than means |
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lowering service-level
requirements for offpeak periods,
e.g. school holidays |
As part of the Army’s Peacetime Reorganisation
efforts, HQ 9 Div and HQ Infantry were merged to
enhance infantry training and development in a more
focused and efficient way. This is expected to save
the Ministry of Defence an estimated $10 million
in manpower resources.
Mr Peter Ong, Permanent Secretary (Ministry of Trade
and Industry) who chairs the Economy Drive Committee,
said: “We have chosen as our FY05 ED theme
to ‘Simplify, Standardise, Synergise’.
This is to get public agencies to think and look
deeply into even more challenging ED efforts such
as cross-agency collaboration and process review
that yield long-term recurrent savings.” |
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