Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong recently launched Budget 2024 and termed it “the first instalment of our Forward Singapore programme” (Goh & Tham, 2024). In doing so, DPM Wong related the engagement efforts under Forward Singapore to concrete outcomes in Budget policies. Against this backdrop, this piece seeks to explore the effectiveness of citizen engagement efforts in Singapore.

It is first worth looking at the history of citizen engagement exercises in Singapore. Engagement exercises are not new. In fact, they have been part of the government’s toolkit since the 1980s, starting with the Next Lap (1989) to the more recent Our Singapore Conversation (2012) (Y.-C. Tham, 2022).

What has changed is the nature of engagements. While previous engagements tended to be more focused on consultation, which tends to involve citizens providing feedback, today’s engagements tend to go deeper than consultation, to the level of co-creation. Co-creation refers to citizens actively shaping the form of policies and being part of policymaking (Tan, 2017). For example, as part of Forward Singapore, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) recently launched Youth Panels that allow youths to co-develop policies in areas of their interest (Ang, 2023).

Such deeper citizen participation is important because it marks a shift in the government’s attitude towards citizens. When the government opens up space for policy formulation to citizens, it demonstrates that they view citizens as equal partners capable of helping to shape policies. With this, citizens will be more comfortable and willing to participate in such initiatives. For example, a study conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) showed that the use of citizens’ panels, which is a form of deliberative engagement process, has improved citizens’ perceptions of the government’s willingness to partner with citizens (Soon & Liang, 2021). 

At the same time, while deeper citizen participation appears good in theory, it is also important for the government to ensure that citizens feel that their participation is meaningful as well. When different engagement efforts yield similar outcomes, it may lead to citizens inadvertently thinking that engagement exercises are pointless. For example, the Forward Singapore report states that “young people today [...] often express a desire for meaning and purpose in what they do [as careers], not just for good salaries” (Building Our Shared Future, 2023). Even though this is presented as a “discernible shift” from the past, a similar idea was also raised in the report from Our Singapore Conversation more than 10 years ago, which stated that “We want to live purposefully [...] and live in a community that celebrates achievements beyond the economic” (Reflections, 2013). Similarly, Singapore Together (2020) and Forward Singapore (2022) were similar in their scope and held within a short span of each other. This might have reinforced some Singaporeans' scepticism towards the government's engagement exercises, even if they might have produced accurate insights that reflected the views of Singaporeans.

Citizens may also negatively perceive government engagements because they think that engagement is merely used as a justification for policies already decided by the government. A (slightly older) example would be the government’s plans to develop Bukit Brown cemetery for residential use and build a highway through the cemetery in 2011. The initial consultation efforts were not focused on exploring possible alternatives, but rather, merely served as an avenue for the government to inform the stakeholders of its decision and “manage public opinion” (Leow, 2012). To be fair, the government did acknowledge that it could have done better then, and has also placed an increased emphasis on genuine citizen engagement of late. Nevertheless, some remnants of “un-genuine” engagement may remain – some youths who have participated in engagements had highlighted that “they were treated as naive, or not taken seriously, when they presented their ideas at previous government dialogues” (Ang, 2023).

How can the government reduce scepticism towards engagements? I propose two ways.

The first way is for the government to demonstrate that they are willing to change long-time policy stances, or what some call “sacred cows”, in response to engagement. To the government’s credit, it has shown a willingness to do this. For example, in response to feedback received from both workers and unions during the Forward Singapore exercise, DPM Wong announced in late 2023 that the government is looking at how to design a temporary financial support scheme for those involuntarily unemployed (Tan Hanhonn, 2023). This is in recognition of how technological changes are likely to lead to increased retrenchments. This marks a shift from the government’s previous aversion towards unemployment benefits because of how it might undermine personal responsibility.

The second way for the government to reduce such scepticism is to communicate engagement outcomes with transparency. Specifically, the government can document precisely how inputs by citizens are translated into policy changes, as well as provide reasons for why certain inputs do not translate into change. This assures participants that their input has been heard, and serves to encourage participants to continue participating in engagements. This could have been applied in the case of SimplyGo.

To quickly recap what happened in the SimplyGo saga: the Land Transport Authority (LTA) initially announced that they would phase out the old card-based ticketing system by June 2024, only to reverse their decision a few weeks later due to public backlash (A. Tham, 2024).

The LTA’s U-turn is indeed commendable as it demonstrates an openness on the government’s part to respond to public feedback, even at the risk of political embarrassment. At the same time, it also reveals that previous engagement efforts were inadequate in allowing the government to accurately assess public sentiment. I agree with commentators that more could and should have been done to ensure engagements were sufficiently representative (Lee, 2024).

That being said, apart from better conducting engagements, LTA could have done better in communicating the results of their engagements. This is because communication comes hand-in-hand with engagement. For example, part of the uproar stemmed from a misconception that seniors who were “not tech (savvy)” would be left behind by this move (A. Tham, 2024). However, in reality, concession card holders, which include seniors, would not have been affected by the SimplyGo transition. LTA could have communicated earlier that it had decided to exclude concession card holders after engaging consumers – this fact was only made known when the reversal was announced (Ng & Yeoh, 2024). While such a change might not have changed the eventual outcome, it would at least reduce the perception that the government is out of touch with citizens’ concerns.

In conclusion, the 4G leadership’s move as part of Forward Singapore towards engaging both more deeply and widely is commendable and should be lauded. Nevertheless, I believe that for engagements to be even more effective, they should not only translate into concrete outcomes (such as policy changes), but also be shown to translate into these outcomes. To this end, increased citizen engagement must be supported by improved public communication.