Too bad I won't be back in time for the 9th April debate. I'm sure it would be an interestingly heated session. But I'm quite incensed by how someone said civil servants deserve a low pay because they are doing public service. With all the crap we have to put up with? We deserve to get much much more than the private sector! But I'd settle for just an equivalent.

And no, no matter what it is, I'm not convinced just yet to, as AZ once put it, join over the dark side. I'm not that hard up for a bigger salary. ;)

One missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of civil service pay. Because they're
worth it – but how would the public know? by P N Balji on TodayOnline

THERE is one cold, hard fact that the Government needs to convince itself of as it prepares for the Parliamentary debate on the pay rise for ministers, senior judicial officers and top civil servants.

Don't expect an ideological settlement on a topic that, even after a decade of pushing, prodding and explaining, continues to simmer every time it is brought up. Not in the near future for sure.

Those opposed to using private sector benchmarks argue that public service, as the term makes it clear, is somewhat like voluntary work where pay and perks are low down in the pecking order.

It is a position that is entrenched so deeply in their body politic that trying to convince them to change their minds is like trying to transplant a new DNA into their genes.

Even the JTC example given by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week — that a Middle Eastern country came out with an audacious feeler to buy the statutory board lock, stock and barrel — did not cut any ice with a businessman friend of mine.

He was livid. "Civil service is public service. We should not allow the meaning of this service-to-nation principle to be diluted."

With this kind of a hard-line stand, the Government should look at other ways to make its case with the public. Issues like a rigorous performance appraisal system, the right salary benchmark and a staggered pay rise instead of a one-off increase will come up for an airing again.

But there is one missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle that, if tackled with earnestness and urgency, will go some way toward taking a bit of the emotion out of this debate.

And it revolves round this question: How good are the talents that are going to be paid top dollar?

In the case of some of the ministers and senior judicial officers, their work is out there in the public domain for Singaporeans to make a critical analysis of.

The ministers' speeches, the way they deal with their constituents, their ministries' dealing with the public, the changes they are making to policies are out there.

The judicial officials' verdicts and the way they explain their decisions are also up for public scrutiny.

But some Singaporeans may want to go further and see how the ministries and the judicial system here measure up to the best in the world.

For example, American hospitals are now using the number of deaths, not just the number who survived, in their establishments as an added benchmark for success.

Why not test our hospitals on this criterion, too?

But it is a group of civil servants -— like directors, deputy secretaries, permanent secretaries and CEOs of statutory boards, whose work is hardly seen in the public domain — that the Government must turn its attention to.

There is no doubt in my mind that many of these officers are very good at their work, but the public needs to be convinced.

Take this year's promotions. There was very little articulation of why they deserved to move up the ladder.

One of those promoted, Mr Lim Chuan Poh, gave a little peek into his tour of duty at the Ministry of Education by talking, only after he was prompted at a media interview, of his leading role in Northlight School, a second-chance institute for those students who had dropped out.

The Prime Minister, in his speech on Thursday, admitted as much. "The contributions of public officers are not always visible to the public eye."

He then went on to give another peek into the work of those people in the Ministries of Manpower and Finance who "together helped to settle major changes to our social safety nets and fiscal structure" and helped to put the shine on this year's Budget statement.

The Government needs to go further. Top civil servants should be prodded to come out from the cold by ublishing articles, giving speeches and appearing in public forums to articulate their roles in and the thoughts behind some of the policies they were involved in.

Only then will the public have a better measure of the work they do and be able to see for themselves if these men and women deserve the higher pay that is being proposed for them.

There is a perception vacuum staring at us.

In the last paragraph of a long article former top civil servant Eddie Teo wrote last year, he said: "Foreigners and new citizens appreciate that we have a first-class public service, one of the best in the world. It is only Singaporeans who seem to doubt it."

That doubt needs to be eased, if not cleared. Let April 9, when Parliament will meet to debate this emotive issue, be the start of a journey to lifting the veil of anonymity on the work of the civil servant.