Time really passes in a flash. Have been volunteering with the Pro enterprise panel for 6+ years now and just stepped down. I volunteer across 5-6 organizations related to business or education. It’s a good way to give back to society and make use of the learnings I have.
A few takeaways.
1) Our civil service is very serious about doing its job well. Not only do they provide services and regulate society and industry, they go the extra step to constantly benchmark against world standards and push forward sg development across multiple facets.
2) The PEP focuses on helping the civil service be pro enterprise in its activities as regulator and service provider. The fact that chairman is head civil service shows how seriously this is taken. Over the years I have seen suggestions from industry get taken up seriously and changes made whenever it makes sense. And even if it does not make sense, proper answers are given to the suggesting firm. You can read more below.
https://www.mti.gov.sg/PEP/About-the-PEP
3) There is good clarity of thought on the role of the regulator when it comes to significant innovation. Industry naturally leads on many new services like ride hailing, ev ecosystem or even crypto exchanges etc. Many will push the boundaries of our laws. The approach is never a sledgehammer but a case by case, let the market show the nuances approach. Open sandboxes, engage industry and the answer frequently will reveal itself in terms of what regulators need to do.
4) The civil service is huge. So naturally it is not nimble and there is always a good reason for status quo. And many issues cut across multiple ministries and agencies so it’s easy to get bogged down.
Hence it’s necessary to have encourage cross pollination of ideas and have cross agency task forces to look at things. Again, this is done in many cases. Quite heartening to see an entity so large try to be nimble and responsive to stakeholder feedback.
5) Finally, many of the civil servants we meet whether senior or not are engaged with their work. Maybe not at the startup team standard but they clearly have strong domain expertise and there is good thoughtfulness of many replies. Hardly any lip service kind of talk.
6) If there is anything I feel can improve it’s that the sensing of what’s happening on the business ground and in future tech and business trends can be made even stronger not just at the top mgmt level but at the directors and officers who deal with industry.
More mechanisms for regulators to interact with the businesses they regulate and learn and see what’s done in overseas jurisdictions. Maybe even more roles for secondment to private sector etc
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