Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Town councils: Measure what matters to residents
September 28, 2009
By Chua Mui Hoong from Straits Times
I LIVE in a five-room Housing Board flat. Each month, I pay $63 in
service and conservancy charges and $75 for parking.
So for $138 a month, I get: A space in an open surface carpark at the
foot of my block that gets bird poo every now and then – or a spot in
the covered multi-storey carpark a few blocks away. The common
corridor floor is washed once a month, and the bin chute is fogged
several times a year. My estate is pretty clean.
But like thousands of HDB residents, I often wonder how my service and
conservancy charge (S&CC) payments are being spent, how they could be
kept low, and what the town council does to make sure it gets enough
bang for my bucks.
The Town Council Management Report, which will debut next year, will,
unfortunately, not make me any the wiser. Details of this report were
announced last Wednesday, after calls last year for closer scrutiny of
town councils. Town councils drew flak last year after news broke that
some had invested long-term sinking funds in instruments that turned
toxic.
That brouhaha turned out to be a storm in a teacup. As the panel which
came up with the framework for the town council management report
noted, investing is not the town councils' core activity. So it saw no
need to use investment returns as an indicator of good management.
This is sensible. But what, then, should be included? The panel
decided on four categories: cleanliness, estate maintenance, lift
maintenance and arrears in S&CC.
The problem is that some of these indicators depend too much on
factors extraneous to town council management, and are not useful to
residents.
Take the indicator tracking the percentage of arrears in S&CC
payments: An estate with a larger proportion of older, low-income
residents is likely to have a higher percentage of arrears.
A high percentage of arrears – and hence a poor rating in this
category – may correlate more to the socio-economic profile of
residents in the estate than to any management defect. In fact, a
council that wants to look good on this rating may decide to be
aggressive in recovering arrears from residents in financial hardship
– certainly not a desirable outcome.
It is a strange argument that arrears recovery is an indicator of good
financial management. Given that arrears form 3per cent or $15million
of the estimated $500million collected in S&CC each year, the impact
of recovering a larger fraction of arrears on the overall financial
health of a council will be negligible. At the East Coast Town
Council, provision for bad and doubtful debt is $100,000 – a mere
0.55per cent of the $18million spent in 2007/08.
HDB residents like me would rather a town council go easy on that Ah
Pek who is $500 in arrears and struggling to survive on $600 a month
as a cleaner, and focus its resources on looking at how it can
maximise the use of the money it already has at its disposal.
We want to know how councils can become more efficient in estate
management. Sure, we want our estates to be clean, but we also want
S&CC kept down, as a dialogue in July conducted by the National
Development Ministry discovered. Residents want to know how efficient
town councils are with their money, and how they can do more with
less.
Meaningful indicators would be: how is the town council managing the
pool of funds at its disposal? What is the town council's equivalent
of the 'expense ratio' – how much is it paying in fees to managing
agents?
The lion's share of town council expenditure goes to two items:
cleaning, and water and electricity bills. Residents would want to
know what town councils do to keep maintenance costs low.
When building new structures, do town councils consciously go for
options that will have low maintenance costs, or do they go for
structures that are cheap to build, but which will cost more to
maintain down the road?
I, for one, am heartened to learn that my Bishan-Toa Payoh Town
Council is replacing 4,000 outdoor lights with energy-saving bulbs,
cutting the energy bill by 55per cent.
It would also be useful to know how one council does vis a vis others.
What is the cost per unit of cleaning services paid by each council?
Is there a way to raise productivity?
Comparisons would certainly make town councillors and MPs nervous. But
it would have the merit of helping councils share best practices, and
of focusing councillors' minds on what matters most to residents.
The other surprising thing about the framework is the premium it
places on spot checks on cleanliness.
Cleanliness depends as much on residents' habits as on the
effectiveness of a town council. Spot checks are not an ideal way to
gauge how clean an estate is.
Take my estate, which is usually clean. Say that on the one day the
inspector visits, with checklist in hand, four residents put out bulky
items in the corridor pending removal, and another four decline to
clean up their dog poo. As a result, the entire town council will get
an undeservedly low cleanliness rating.
When it comes to cleanliness, a spot check is less meaningful than
tracking performance over time. After all, this was the rationale for
moving away from the 'single big exam' mode of testing in schools to
continuous assessment.
It is more productive for cleanliness ratings to include residents'
views, since they are the ones who live in the estate and know best
how clean the area is.
The other two sets of indicators cover estate maintenance, to measure
defects like leaking pipes; and lifts, tracking lift breakdown and
rescue services. These are simple and easy to quantify.
As Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu notes,
the report marks only the start of a longer process of managing the
performance of town councils.
It is a modest start. The method can be refined in years to come.
But in choosing criteria like arrears management, and opting for an
easy but potentially inaccurate spot-check assessment of cleanliness,
there is a risk that a lot of resources will end up being used to
track the performance of town councils in ways not meaningful to HDB
residents. – ST
Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Grandma & Grandpa
Grandma & Grandpa
Grandma and Grandpa were visiting their kids overnight.
When Grandpa found a bottle of Viagra in his son's medicine cabinet, he asked about using one of the pills.
The son said, 'I don't think you should take one Dad; they're very strong and very expensive.'
'How much?' asked Grandpa.
'$10.00 a pill,' Answered the son.
'I don't care,' said Grandpa, 'I'd still like to try one, and before we leave in the morning, I'll put the money under the pillow.'
Later the next morning, the son found $110.00 under the pillow. He called Grandpa and said, 'I told you each pill was $10.00, not $110.
'I know,' said Grandpa. 'The hundred is from Grandma!'
SIGN OF THE TIME: STANFORD PHD BECOMES TAXI DRIVER
SIGN OF THE TIME: STANFORD PHD BECOMES TAXI DRIVER
Driven to driving a taxi despite having a PhD
Bio-chemist Dr Cai Minnjie who failed to land another research
position after losing his job last year now happily prowls the streets
as a cabbie.
Star, Malaysia
August 29, 2009
INSIGHT: BY SEAH CHIANG NEE
SINGAPORE'S fraternity of taxi drivers, with its fair share of
retrenched executives, has now an exalted new member – a PhD
bio-chemist from Stanford University.
Prowling the streets of Singapore today is 57-year-old unemployed
scientist Dr Cai Mingjie who lost his job at Singapore's premier
A-Star biomedical research institute last year.
The China-born naturalised citizen with 16 years of research
accomplishments said he began driving a taxi last October after failed
efforts to land another job.
The news shocked this nation, which holds an unshakable faith in the
power of an advanced university education.
One surprised white-collar worker said he had believed that such a
doctorate and experience was as good as life-long employment and
success.
"If he has to drive a taxi, what chances do ordinary people like us
have?" he asked.
I have met a number of highly qualified taxi drivers in recent years,
including former managers and a retrenched engineer.
One cheerful driver – a former stock-broker – surprised me one day in
giving me detailed reasons on what stocks to buy or avoid.
"At a time like this, the taxi business is probably the only business
in Singapore that still actively recruits people," said Dr Cai.
To me, his plight is taking Singapore into a new chapter.
"(I am) probably the only taxi driver in the world with a PhD from
Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments ...,"
blogged Dr Cai.
"I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my
scientific career" and was unable to find another job "for reasons I
can only describe as something uniquely Singapore".
The story quickly spread far and wide over the Internet. Most
Singaporeans expressed admiration for his ability to adapt so quickly
to his new life. Two young Singaporeans asked for his taxi number,
saying they would love to travel in his cab and talk to him.
"There's so much he can pass on to me," one said.
Others questioned why, despite his tremendous scientific experience,
he is unable to find a teaching job.
His unhappy exit is generally attributed to a personal cause (he has
alleged chaotic management by research heads) rather than any decline
in Singapore's bio-tech project, which appears to be surviving the
downturn.
The case highlights a general weakening of the R and D (research and
development) market in smallish Singapore.
"The bad economy means not many firms are hiring professional
scientists," one surfer said. "Academia isn't much of a help – there's
a long history of too many PhDs chasing too few jobs."
While the image of taxi drivers has received a tremendous boost, the
same cannot be said of Singapore's biomedical project – particularly
its efforts to nourish home-grown research talent.
"It may turn more Singaporeans away from Life Sciences as a career,"
said one blogger.
One writer said: "In my opinion, PhDs are useless, especially in
Singapore. It's just another certificate and doesn't mean much."
Another added: "The US is in a worse situation. Many are coming here
to look for jobs."
"I won't want my child to study for years to end up driving a taxi,"
said a housewife with a teenage daughter.
The naturalised Singaporean citizen underwent his PhD training at
Stanford University, the majority of his work revolving around the
study of yeast proteins.
His case is not unique. US research-scientist Douglas Prasher, who
isolated the gene that creates the green fluorescent protein (and just
missed the 2008 Chemistry Nobel Prize) faced similar straits.
Prasher moved from one research institution to another when his
funding dried up, and he eventually quit science – to drive a courtesy
shuttle in Alabama.
"Still, he remains humble and happy and seems content with his minivan
driver job," said a surfer.
With an evolving job market as more employers resort to multi-tasking
and short-term contracts, more Singaporeans are chasing after split
degrees, like accountancy and law or computer and business.
Others avoid post-graduate studies or specialised courses of a fixed
discipline in favour of general or multi-discipline studies.
"Experience is king" is the watchword; there has been a rush for
no-pay internships.
"The future favours graduates with multiple skills and career
flexibility, people who are able to adapt to different types of work,"
one business executive said.
During the past few years, as globalisation deepened, there has been a
growing disconnect between what Singaporeans studied in university and
their subsequent careers.
It follows the trend in the developed world where old businesses
disappear – almost overnight – and new ones spring up, which poses
problems for graduates with an inflexible job expectation.
I know of a young man who graduated from one of America's top civil
engineering universities abandoning the construction hard hat for a
teaching gown.
Another engineer I met is running his father's lucrative coffee shop.
Lawyers have become musicians or journalists, and so on.
Cases of people working in jobs unrelated to their university training
have become so common that interviewers have stopped asking candidates
questions like "Why should a trained scientist like you want to work
as a junior executive with us?"
In the past, parents would crack their heads pondering what their
children should study – accountancy or law or engineering, the
so-called secure careers – and see them move single-mindedly into
these professions.
A doctor was then a doctor, a biologist generally worked in the lab
and a lawyer argued cases in courts – square pegs in square holes, so
to speak.
Today the world is slowly moving away from this neat pattern.
o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the
information website littlespeck.com
Editor's Note: See Dr. Cai's blog here.
Friday, September 11, 2009
cab The most irritating recorded voice message ever ...
Has anyone tried dialing for a Comfort Cab lately? Perhaps a little
recap might help…
"From 1st March 2008, under the new LTA's regulation, taxis can now
pick and alight passengers at taxi stands and bulidings with private
driveway in the CBD. The regulated hours are from 7am to 10 pm,
Mondays to Saturdays."
Noticed anything wrong with the above message? I almost flipped when I
heard it for the first time.
Firstly, "…under the new LTA's regulation…" Is there a NEW LTA? I
think they meant "the LTA's new regulation…"
The second error was so blatant I'm wondering why they still choose
not to amend it.
"…taxis can now pick and alight passengers at taxi stands and
bulidings with private driveway in the CBD…" Erm…you mean in the past
taxis were NOT allowed to pick and alight passengers at taxi stands
and buildings with private driveways???? And does that statement also
imply that traditionally, taxis were not allowed to pick up fares in
CBD? It sure sounded like it. I'm no language expert but this is how I
would phrase it,
"From 1st March 2008, under the LTA's new regulation, taxis within the
CBD may ONLY pick and alight passengers at taxi stands and bulidings
with private driveways. The regulated hours are from 7am to 10 pm,
Mondays to Saturdays."
Doesn't this sound more appropriate? Seriously, I think ComfortDelgro
should do something about the message…it's embarrassing.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
cab Prime Taxi - 花红原来不是花红?
（2009-09-02）
● 胡洁梅
百胜德士公司总经理陈顺财回复本报时说，公司是在听取一些司机反映"驾了好几年德士却没有积蓄"的心声后，决定从每日租金拨出6元3角充作司机的"储蓄"，五年约满后归还司机。公司与司机签约前都会说明所谓的"花红"来源，合同里也有交代。司机一次过得缴付5000元按柜金，不可能没搞清楚就贸然签约。
胡洁梅 报道
几名德士司机声称被公司传单误导，以为5年约满后，就可获得一笔1万1000元的花红。
但事实上，所谓的"花红"是公司从他们每天缴付的租金中拨出6元3角，五年合约满后，将这累积的数额（约1万1000元）归还给他们。
这15名平均加入公司有两年时间的百胜德士（Prime
Taxi）司机声称，在与公司签约时，公司未把这点交待清楚，让他们误以为花红是公司给予的额外款项。他们对此感到不满，想中止合约，但由于他们未做满五年，若终止合约，之前缴付的按柜金就无法取回。
百胜德士公司总经理陈顺财回复本报时说，公司在2007年成立，一直都以从69元起的低租金吸引司机，只要同意至少服务五年，并缴付一笔5000元按柜金，驾满五年后，就可拿回按柜金，外加约1万1000元的现金奖励。
他说，公司是听一些司机们反映，驾了好几年德士却没有积蓄，于是决定将每日租金的一小部分拨出，当作司机的"储蓄"，约满后归还给他们。公司与司机们签约前都会说明所谓的"花红"来源，合同里也有交代。司机们一次过得缴付5000元按柜金，不可能没搞清楚，就贸然签约。
不过，一些德士司机却认为，在传单上使用"花红"的字眼，是在误导他们。公司所谓的"花红"，其实是司机自己缴的钱，因此其中几人在六月底找律师协助，加入"抗议"行动的司机渐渐增加到目前的15人。
他们昨天在李明辉律师的陪同下，召开记者会向媒体申诉不满。
司机陈锦昌说，他前年加入公司，同年因父亲过世，公司停止收租三天，但每天仍扣除6元3角。他觉得奇怪，查询后才知道公司每天从租金抽出一笔钱，好让他们在五年后能得到所谓的"花红"，所以即使当天没还租金，也得缴付这笔钱。
另一司机周雄伟（53岁）受访说，他原本在另一德士公司服务，要不是所谓的"花红"让他心动，他才不会转公司。他声称没有机会仔细阅读合同就得签名，当天也没能拿到合同副本。
公司总经理陈顺财说，德士司机都可向公司要合同副本，一些司机可能认为公司有存底，没有提出要求。他们也曾把合同让有兴趣者带回家参考，合同没有什么好隐瞒的。
他说，传单只是一种吸引公众的宣传工具，不认为"花红"字眼有欺骗成分。他们开业至今，一直在用，若真的引起误解，会检讨是否纠正。
一名没有参加投诉行动的百胜德士司机林保发（51岁）说，公司在签约前确实有清楚解释"花红"的来源，也认为这样的储蓄计划很好，他表示没有向公司拿合同。有十多年驾驶德士经验的他之前在别的公司服务。
另一杜姓司机（46岁）驾驶的是以汽油驱动的德士，公司从每日的租金中拨出约2元7角作为"花红"，做满五年后就可拿回约5000元的"花红"。
杜姓司机说，他每天的租金是74元9角，他当初知道这样的计划时也觉得奇怪，曾问公司可否不要"花红"，干脆让他缴付72元2角作为租金就好，但公司表示这样的计划是要鼓励司机们长期为公司服务，他觉得这算合理。
但他也了解其他司机的感受，可能他们真的误解了，生意现在也难做，又得被"绑死"五年，可能借此发泄。
司机希望中止合约
拿回按柜金
代表律师李明辉说，司机们目前未采取法律行动，只想和公司达成协议，中止合约拿回按柜金和应得的每日"花红"，若公司不答应，就希望他们能在5年约满后，遵守承诺给予额外花红。李明辉事后曾代表他们，发信件给公司，对方的态度坚决，指合同上白纸黑字清楚列明，未触犯法律。李明辉认为，合约上的细节还有商榷。
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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