Re: Today's paper : "Is it that simple?"
- From: "Hampton" <hampton@xxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:03:13 +0800
"ajk" <anders43@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fbaf7d02-49fe-4a5f-afb2-d9e9fcac64dd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I read todays' paper with growing concern thinking to myself, how can
people be so arrogant?
The writer claims that Singapore is led by a division one government
and that any other government would be a division three and lead to
financial ruin in three to four years. On what criteria do they
consider themselves "division one"? It seems other countries manage
quite well thank you very much, better even than Singapore and they
are led by "division three" democratic governments - if one now uses
the authors' own definition.
Called themselves Division One is alredy humble, their pays are actually
super-scale or staff-grade.
PM, ministers to get pay rise of between 14% and 33%
Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 09 April 2007 1805 hrs
SINGAPORE : The annual salaries of the Prime Minister, ministers and top civil
servants will be increased by between 14 percent and 33 percent, with the
average pay rise of 25 percent.
For civil servants in general, about two-thirds of them will get between 3
percent and 5 percent pay increases.
Revealing the details in Parliament, Minister-in-Charge of the Civil Service Teo
Chee Hean said the adjustments will take effect from this month, with a second
revision at year's end.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earned $2.5 million last year; after the
revision, he will draw $3.1 million this year.
President SR Nathan will get $3.2 million dollars, this is up from the current
$2.5 million while both Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee
Kuan Yew who earned $2.7 million each last year, will now get paid $3.04 million
each.
In his ministerial speech, Mr Teo said competitive wages have helped attract and
retain able people in government and the competitive advantage must be
maintained.
Describing the Public Service as a progressive employer, Mr Teo said its human
resource management practices must keep pace and competitive wages have to be
paid, along with the proper development and training to improve and stretch
themselves so that they can better contribute to their agencies and ultimately
to serve the people of Singapore.
Pointing out that the last major salary revision for the Civil Service was seven
years ago, renumeration has since fallen behind their benchmarks which are set
out in the White Paper on 'Competitive Salaries for Competent and Honest
Government' in 1994.
The benchmarks follow economic and employment market conditions up and down and
after calculating the benchmark figure, a check against private sector income
earners is made.
Mr Teo said that having taken a comprehensive look at all the schemes, attrition
rates and wage levels relative to their respective market comparisons, the
decision made was not to have a uniform across-the-board revision, but for
adjustments that are made according to the needs of the individual scheme such
as to counter attrition or where wages are lagging the market.
In addition, salary structures will be brought more in line with the philosophy
of linking pay to performance and only those who have performed beyond the
satisfactory level will receive a performance-based payment.
Therefore, the starting salary for a graduate with a Good Honours degree who is
appointed to the Management Executive Scheme, will see a 10% rise, the starting
salaries of other graduate schemes as well as that of officers who have been
appointed recently will also be adjusted according to their market benchmarks.
Officers in the Civil Service such as those in the Education Service, the
Corporate Support Scheme and the Operations Support Scheme, will also see a pay
adjustment of 3-5% in their annual salaries which will be performance-based.
In addition, civil servants will continue to receive their annual increment and
the mid year annual variable payment, and like other Singaporeans, they will
enjoy the 1.5% increase in the employer CPF contribution from July this year.
The payments will be made next month, in May.
Mr Teo also highlighted a group of Civil Service schemes which is lagging the
market, namely the Management Executive Scheme, the Management Support scheme,
the Home Uniformed Services, and the Foreign Service, which collectively account
for almost one-third of the officers in the civil service.
Salaries in the Management Executive Scheme, he said, need an upward adjustment
of 16% this year and as a first step, there will be a 5-8% adjustment which will
be in the form of a performance-based payment of 0.75-1.25 months of salary.
Changes to the Management Support Scheme and Technical Support Scheme, which
employ officers with diploma qualifications will also see a revision with a
performance-based payment of 0.5 - 1 month, while those in the Home Affairs
Uniformed Services, comprising the Police, Prisons, Civil Defence and Narcotics
services, where wages are also lagging, adjustments amounting to 10-13% will be
carried out and come in the form of a performance-based payment of 0.75 - 1.5
months.
The Singapore Armed Forces and Foreign Service will make similar salary
adjustments with Foreign Service officers receiving a market adjustment of 0.75
months.
Turning to the Administrative Service which Mr Teo described as the core of the
Public Service, he said such officers are expected to not only carry out their
primary jobs well, but to also actively lead, participate and contribute to
inter-agency issues and service-wide initiatives.
However, their salaries which were last adjusted in 2000 have fallen behind
their benchmarks which are pegged to the SR9 grade and MR4 grade.
The SR9 grade which is the entry level into the Superscale grades of civil
servants is benchmarked against the salary of the 15th person, aged 32 years,
from 6 professions, namely bankers, lawyers, engineers, accountants, employees
of MNCs and local manufacturers. This benchmark which dipped in 2004 - 2005, but
has since risen, currently stands at $361,000.
The second benchmark, the MR4 grade or Staff Grade I, which is the grade at
which senior Permanent Secretaries and entry-level ministers are paid, is
defined as two-thirds of the median salary among the top 8 earners in banking,
law, engineering and accountancy, as well as employees of MNCs and local
manufacturers. This benchmark is currently $2.2 million.
Mr Teo said salaries at the MR4 level have stayed at $1.2 million, the same
level as in 2001 which means salaries are now at 55% of the benchmark.
However, he said since it is not realistic to close the gap fully in one go due
to the large gap, the first step will be to increase the annual salaries for MR4
grades and above, by an average of 25%, this brings the annual salary to $1.6
million.
The revisions will be made through adjustments to both monthly salaries and
annual components with monthly salaries for the MR4 grade and above being
increased by an average of 15%, with the percentage increase tapering off for
the higher grades.
In addition, the restructuring will remove components which are no longer
relevant such as a Car Allowance, and will build up performance-linked elements.
Mr Teo said the GDP Bonus will be raised to 3%,with the bonus given only if the
economy grows by 5% and payment remaining at zero if the economy grows by 2% or
less.
At the same time, the Performance Bonus which will apply to all appointment
holders, the Administrative Service, as well as senior officers in all
ministries and statutory boards will go up by two months to a norm of 7 months.
As for Administrative Officers salaries' at the Superscale entry grade or SR9,
Mr Teo said they have stayed close to the benchmark level, and as such there
will not be any adjustment to the monthly salaries at this grade or in the
grades below.
However, there will be a performance-based payment of 0.5 to 0.75 month, in line
with other civil servants whose schemes are at or close to their benchmarks.
This payment, together with the higher GDP bonus paid out this year, will raise
annual SR9 salaries by 3% to $384,000 and 36% will be variable depending on how
well the economy and the individual performs.
In addition, the allowance for Members of Parliament which is pegged to the
Administrative Service SR9 grade will be raised from the current $11,900 to
$13,200.
The GDP Bonus will also be extended to MPs, so as to link their annual package
to the state of the economy, with MPs getting a one month GDP bonus if the GDP
grows at 5%, but if GDP growth is 2% or less, there will be nothing.
All the adjustments will increase the Government's wage bill by about $214
million or 4.7 % for the Civil Service and $10.5 million (or 23%) for political
appointment holders .
Mr Teo said the objective of the pay revision is to keep it competitive with
private sector salaries.
Singapore's competitive wages have helped to bring in and retain able people in
government and the public service.
He said the policy has served the nation well, so it's vital that Singapore
maintains this competitive advantage of a clean, effective and efficient public
service.
This will ensure a team of good people to develop the vision and execute the
plans.
.
- References:
- Today's paper : "Is it that simple?"
- From: ajk
- Today's paper : "Is it that simple?"
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