<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>July 8, 2009
THE ST INTERVIEW
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Mayor Teo Ser Luck in a hurry
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>He wants help flowing more quickly to the jobless and needy in his district </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE new mayor of the North East district tells a true story, of a Member of Parliament who met a retrenched father of three during a house-to-house block visit in 2006.
The man was referred to the constituency welfare committee to get help, but never showed up.
The reason: Just days after the MP's visit, he jumped off a block of flats.
At a time when many are grappling with retrenchment and spiralling debt, Mr Teo Ser Luck says timely help from the Government can sometimes be a matter of life and death.
So it is no surprise that the new mayor has given officers at his North East Community Development Council a new goal starting next month - to cut the time it takes to process financial hardship cases.
'At the end of the day, our objective is to be able to help residents, right?' he says. 'The longer we take, the worse off they are. I want to cut down any bottlenecks.'
'If we take four weeks to process a case, my constant fear is it may be too late for some.'
He thinks the processing time can be cut to as little as five days.
Mr Teo, 41, a triathlete in his spare time, has a sportsman's focus when it comes to overcoming obstacles.
He has also come up with a way to process cases more speedily.
'Instead of just trying to solve people's problems from the office, my officers will try to solve problems on the ground. They will go to meet their clients rather than the other way around,' says Mr Teo, who took over as mayor of the second-largest district from Senior Minister of State Zainul Abidin Rasheed.
From next month, his social assistance officers will be assigned constituencies and they will be encouraged to meet clients in community clubs, residents' committee centres, or even in their homes.
It will save people commuting time. Sengkang or Hougang residents, for instance, can take up to 45 minutes to travel by bus to the CDC office in Tampines.
Having a CDC officer in their neighbourhood will also make it easier for residents to schedule subsequent meetings.
The initiative will be phased in and Mr Teo wants to start with at least one constituency in each of the three GRCs.
His district covers the Pasir Ris-Punggol, Tampines and Aljunied group representation constituencies and the Hougang single-member constituency.
Mr Teo hopes the CDC officers on the ground will network with local grassroots leaders, residents' committees, constituency officers, family service centres and voluntary welfare organisations to spot cases and pool resources to speed up help to families in distress.
Singapore has a 'many helping hands' welfare policy, with aid offered by the Government, voluntary welfare groups and the private sector. But, without a coordinator, says Mr Teo, these disparate help groups run the risk of working in isolation or even at cross purposes.
'I look at the CDC as the coordinator, the integrator, the palm that holds together the many fingers of support,' says Mr Teo, also Senior Parliamentary Secretary of the Transport and Community Development, Youth and Sports ministries.
'The CDCs' mission is to make a difference in people's lives,' he says. 'It's a critical mission, and we need to do it with speed, efficiency and effectiveness.'
It seems the CDC has already been moving in the right direction, having cut the time taken to resolve financial assistance cases in recent months.
Two years ago, 82 per cent of such applications were processed in a month or less, well within the MCYS-stipulated timeframe requiring 90 per cent of cases to be processed in six weeks.
This year, 95 per cent of applications were processed within the month - despite a close to 50 per cent jump in cases, from 1,771 between January and May last year to 2,622 in the same period this year.
By putting officers in each constituency, Mr Teo hopes the processing time will be cut even further.
But helping the unemployed find jobs promptly and effectively is key to getting them back on the right track, he admits.
Around 3,740 job-seekers sought help from his CDC in the past six months - a 70 per cent jump from the same period last year - but only one in three has been placed. So Mr Teo plans to strengthen job-help services too.
At present, job-seekers can go to the CDC office in Tampines as well as approach four smaller job assistance centres in Aljunied, Paya Lebar, Sengkang and Tampines. The local centres are run by constituency representatives and have separate job databases.
Mr Teo wants to centralise and consolidate all the jobs information into a single district-wide database so that applicants can be matched with jobs faster.
He cites the example of a 58-year-old accounts clerk with three young children who approached one of the local centres for help after being laid off in April last year. He could not find a job, despite trying for six months. The centre officer then referred him to the CDC, which helped him find one in two months.
'With a consolidated jobs database, he could have been offered the same job within two months,' points out Mr Teo.
He says he will set aside a 'substantial' budget to grow and strengthen the placement centres on the ground by hiring and training more staff.
Mr Teo says his desire to help stems from personal experience of hardship.
His father was a factory worker and his mother, a seamstress. So he and his elder sister worked during holidays to supplement the family income.
During primary school vacations, he would accompany his father to a tannery-cum-handbag factory where the older man skinned crocodiles so that the skin could be fashioned into bags.
The young Ser Luck helped to dye the skins and acted as a coffee boy during lunch time at the Hougang factory.
'When I went to collect my PSLE certificate, my fingers were dyed blue,' he recalls.
For his effort he earned only a few cents each day, but he says: 'When you're poor, every cent counts.'
His father was laid off twice, and Mr Teo recalls one occasion vividly.
'I remember he came back one day and said he did not have a job anymore. Then he quickly called his friend, to go out and find, find, find, find, find (another job),' he says.
Years later, Mr Teo himself lost his job when the company he worked for was sold. Fortunately, he received several job offers within days. Several of his colleagues - all professionals, managers, executives and technicians - remained unemployed for considerably longer.
'The higher you go in your career, the fewer jobs there are - it's like a pyramid. You must be willing to downgrade, downgrade, downgrade,' he adds.
'Downgrade too much and people say you are over-qualified, so you are stuck.'
While the Government is doing its best to soften blows - needy families get immediate interim help from CDCs in the form of NTUC vouchers - Mr Teo firmly believes that self-reliance is the surest way to ensure employment.
His own life has taught him that long- term job security is a thing of the past.
'The important thing is to work hard in whatever you do, so you can build your resume and remain employable,' he says. 'If you fear redundancy, it is always a good idea to re-skill quickly.'
Experience has also impressed upon him the need to live within one's means. People must change their lifestyles when they have money problems.
As an MP, Mr Teo has come across people continuing to live in five-room flats while chalking up huge arrears in home- loan repayments and credit card bills.
'When you tell them to downgrade, they say no, no, we think we can get a better job. But they have been saying that for years and piling up debts. Such attitudes must change.'
Singaporeans could be hungrier when it comes to jobs, he believes.
While working in the logistics sector, he had stints in job-scarce countries such as China, India and Thailand. He was amazed at how industrious people were in those places.
'They would grab every opportunity they got and could go without sleep just to complete something - all because they were trying to do the best they could to keep their jobs,' he says.
What is vital in a downturn is self-motivation, he adds.
'It's important to think positive and build self-discipline and mental strength,' he says. 'If you can do that, you are going to be okay.'
[email protected]
THE ST INTERVIEW
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Mayor Teo Ser Luck in a hurry
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>He wants help flowing more quickly to the jobless and needy in his district </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE new mayor of the North East district tells a true story, of a Member of Parliament who met a retrenched father of three during a house-to-house block visit in 2006.
The man was referred to the constituency welfare committee to get help, but never showed up.
The reason: Just days after the MP's visit, he jumped off a block of flats.
At a time when many are grappling with retrenchment and spiralling debt, Mr Teo Ser Luck says timely help from the Government can sometimes be a matter of life and death.
So it is no surprise that the new mayor has given officers at his North East Community Development Council a new goal starting next month - to cut the time it takes to process financial hardship cases.
'At the end of the day, our objective is to be able to help residents, right?' he says. 'The longer we take, the worse off they are. I want to cut down any bottlenecks.'
'If we take four weeks to process a case, my constant fear is it may be too late for some.'
He thinks the processing time can be cut to as little as five days.
Mr Teo, 41, a triathlete in his spare time, has a sportsman's focus when it comes to overcoming obstacles.
He has also come up with a way to process cases more speedily.
'Instead of just trying to solve people's problems from the office, my officers will try to solve problems on the ground. They will go to meet their clients rather than the other way around,' says Mr Teo, who took over as mayor of the second-largest district from Senior Minister of State Zainul Abidin Rasheed.
From next month, his social assistance officers will be assigned constituencies and they will be encouraged to meet clients in community clubs, residents' committee centres, or even in their homes.
It will save people commuting time. Sengkang or Hougang residents, for instance, can take up to 45 minutes to travel by bus to the CDC office in Tampines.
Having a CDC officer in their neighbourhood will also make it easier for residents to schedule subsequent meetings.
The initiative will be phased in and Mr Teo wants to start with at least one constituency in each of the three GRCs.
His district covers the Pasir Ris-Punggol, Tampines and Aljunied group representation constituencies and the Hougang single-member constituency.
Mr Teo hopes the CDC officers on the ground will network with local grassroots leaders, residents' committees, constituency officers, family service centres and voluntary welfare organisations to spot cases and pool resources to speed up help to families in distress.
Singapore has a 'many helping hands' welfare policy, with aid offered by the Government, voluntary welfare groups and the private sector. But, without a coordinator, says Mr Teo, these disparate help groups run the risk of working in isolation or even at cross purposes.
'I look at the CDC as the coordinator, the integrator, the palm that holds together the many fingers of support,' says Mr Teo, also Senior Parliamentary Secretary of the Transport and Community Development, Youth and Sports ministries.
'The CDCs' mission is to make a difference in people's lives,' he says. 'It's a critical mission, and we need to do it with speed, efficiency and effectiveness.'
It seems the CDC has already been moving in the right direction, having cut the time taken to resolve financial assistance cases in recent months.
Two years ago, 82 per cent of such applications were processed in a month or less, well within the MCYS-stipulated timeframe requiring 90 per cent of cases to be processed in six weeks.
This year, 95 per cent of applications were processed within the month - despite a close to 50 per cent jump in cases, from 1,771 between January and May last year to 2,622 in the same period this year.
By putting officers in each constituency, Mr Teo hopes the processing time will be cut even further.
But helping the unemployed find jobs promptly and effectively is key to getting them back on the right track, he admits.
Around 3,740 job-seekers sought help from his CDC in the past six months - a 70 per cent jump from the same period last year - but only one in three has been placed. So Mr Teo plans to strengthen job-help services too.
At present, job-seekers can go to the CDC office in Tampines as well as approach four smaller job assistance centres in Aljunied, Paya Lebar, Sengkang and Tampines. The local centres are run by constituency representatives and have separate job databases.
Mr Teo wants to centralise and consolidate all the jobs information into a single district-wide database so that applicants can be matched with jobs faster.
He cites the example of a 58-year-old accounts clerk with three young children who approached one of the local centres for help after being laid off in April last year. He could not find a job, despite trying for six months. The centre officer then referred him to the CDC, which helped him find one in two months.
'With a consolidated jobs database, he could have been offered the same job within two months,' points out Mr Teo.
He says he will set aside a 'substantial' budget to grow and strengthen the placement centres on the ground by hiring and training more staff.
Mr Teo says his desire to help stems from personal experience of hardship.
His father was a factory worker and his mother, a seamstress. So he and his elder sister worked during holidays to supplement the family income.
During primary school vacations, he would accompany his father to a tannery-cum-handbag factory where the older man skinned crocodiles so that the skin could be fashioned into bags.
The young Ser Luck helped to dye the skins and acted as a coffee boy during lunch time at the Hougang factory.
'When I went to collect my PSLE certificate, my fingers were dyed blue,' he recalls.
For his effort he earned only a few cents each day, but he says: 'When you're poor, every cent counts.'
His father was laid off twice, and Mr Teo recalls one occasion vividly.
'I remember he came back one day and said he did not have a job anymore. Then he quickly called his friend, to go out and find, find, find, find, find (another job),' he says.
Years later, Mr Teo himself lost his job when the company he worked for was sold. Fortunately, he received several job offers within days. Several of his colleagues - all professionals, managers, executives and technicians - remained unemployed for considerably longer.
'The higher you go in your career, the fewer jobs there are - it's like a pyramid. You must be willing to downgrade, downgrade, downgrade,' he adds.
'Downgrade too much and people say you are over-qualified, so you are stuck.'
While the Government is doing its best to soften blows - needy families get immediate interim help from CDCs in the form of NTUC vouchers - Mr Teo firmly believes that self-reliance is the surest way to ensure employment.
His own life has taught him that long- term job security is a thing of the past.
'The important thing is to work hard in whatever you do, so you can build your resume and remain employable,' he says. 'If you fear redundancy, it is always a good idea to re-skill quickly.'
Experience has also impressed upon him the need to live within one's means. People must change their lifestyles when they have money problems.
As an MP, Mr Teo has come across people continuing to live in five-room flats while chalking up huge arrears in home- loan repayments and credit card bills.
'When you tell them to downgrade, they say no, no, we think we can get a better job. But they have been saying that for years and piling up debts. Such attitudes must change.'
Singaporeans could be hungrier when it comes to jobs, he believes.
While working in the logistics sector, he had stints in job-scarce countries such as China, India and Thailand. He was amazed at how industrious people were in those places.
'They would grab every opportunity they got and could go without sleep just to complete something - all because they were trying to do the best they could to keep their jobs,' he says.
What is vital in a downturn is self-motivation, he adds.
'It's important to think positive and build self-discipline and mental strength,' he says. 'If you can do that, you are going to be okay.'
[email protected]
