The Government Technology Agency has retrenched 93 staff and expects a total of 7 to 9 per cent of roles in its workforce to be affected by restructuring over the next two years.
The restructuring is meant to take GovTech from managing projects delivered by vendors to running products itself, said its chair Chng Kai Fong in a note sent to the agency’s roughly 3,900 staff on July 15. This is so the agency can respond and adjust quickly to national needs.
“This is not an AI-driven downsizing exercise. This shift began years before the current AI wave,” Chng said in the note, which was also sent to the media.
He said the agency, which was founded in 2016 to provide digital services for the public sector, expects to employ more people at the end of the transition than it does today. “GovTech is changing shape, not shrinking.”
In a statement on July 15, GovTech said more than two-thirds of officers identified in the first phase of the restructuring have been retained in their current roles or will be retrained into new roles.
Giving a breakdown of the numbers, the agency said 102 were retained, while 110 were put into apprenticeships to reskill. The 93 retrenched staff make up the remainder.
The restructuring process will happen in three phases over the next two years. The first phase affects six of its forward deployed teams – units embedded in other government agencies – and one of its central functions, said Chng.
Chng, who is also permanent secretary for digital development and information, did not specify the teams or central function affected. Staff working in project delivery and vendor management roles are among those affected.
The next two phases will cover the rest of GovTech’s forward deployed teams, Chng said.
Retrenched staff will receive: one month’s salary for every year of service capped at 25 years; a three-month ex-gratia payment; and salary and benefits through a six-week handover and notice period.
They will also receive career guidance and support to match them to jobs in the public service and outside it. Those asked to stay on to complete handovers or operate critical systems will receive an additional payment.
Chng said these terms were decided in consultation with the union which represents GovTech’s workers, the Amalgamated Union of Statutory Board Employees (AUSBE).
The retrenchments come after efforts to redeploy and convert staff whose job roles are no longer relevant.
“While we have explored redeployment and retraining pathways, a small number of officers will transition out of GovTech,” the agency said.
The agency has already redeployed and converted a “substantial number of officers” into new roles, and will continue to redeploy as many as possible, GovTech said.
It is offering apprenticeships, where staff will be paid their full salary, and structured retraining programmes to enable those in project and vendor management roles to transition into product ownership and related capabilities.
GovTech is also standardising some of its services, and roles tied to these are being consolidated, with affected officers redeployed where possible.
But the agency recognises that not every officer will be able to make this transition, it said.
It is working with the Public Service Division, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and the AUSBE to provide these staff support, including priority redeployment within the public service and help to change careers, it said.
In a statement on July 15, AUSBE general secretary Gabriel Ng said the union was informed of the restructuring plans early and has been working closely with the agency to support affected staff.
He said the union’s priority has been to mitigate the impact of the exercise and support affected officers.
For those retrenched, AUSBE negotiated a support package that goes beyond the provisions in the collective agreement, he said.
AUSBE also worked closely with the agency to identify alternatives to retrenchment, including retraining, apprenticeship and redeployment, he said.
“This creates meaningful pathways for officers to reskill and transition into roles that support the agency’s future direction, helping to reduce the impact on officers,” he said.
Large public service retrenchment exercises are rare. Those announced to the public in the past have taken the civil service’s Special Resignation Scheme (SRS), which allows civil servants whose jobs are no longer needed and who cannot be deployed to other jobs within the service to leave with compensation.
In a parliamentary reply in 2011, then-Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said from 2006 to 2010, 20 officers left the civil service through the SRS.
All received compensation generally calculated at one month’s last drawn salary for each year of service and capped at 25 years.
In 2005, then-Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lee Hsien Loong said 120 Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore officers left under the SRS as part of overall restructuring.
Their roles had become redundant due to computerisation and increased use of e-filing.
A new way of working
Explaining the need for the changes in GovTech, Chng said critical systems increasingly demand in-house capabilities so the agency can respond and adjust quickly to national needs.
Modern technology development requires far more control and agility, especially as the world becomes more digital, and the need for critical government digital infrastructure has “grown tremendously”, he said.
“Left unchanged, our legacy systems become harder to secure, harder to change and more vulnerable to failure,” he added.
GovTech needs people who can define the problem, shape the architecture, make sound build-or-buy decisions, defend its systems and improve critical services every day, he said.
“Vendors will remain important partners, but accountability for our core systems now sits with us,” he said.
Examples of services that illustrate this way of working are products like Singpass, Parents Gateway and CDC Vouchers, he said. “These cannot be specified once, handed to a vendor and considered done. Teams must build, operate, secure and keep improving them, with full accountability.”
The agency expects to employ more at the end of the exercise, he said. “We need more software engineers, product managers, designers, data specialists and cybersecurity professionals.”
Checks by ST on July 15 found around 290 open positions listed by GovTech on Careers@Gov, the jobs portal for those looking to join the civil service.
Jobs listed by the agency include software engineers, product managers, products operations specialists, data scientists and engineers, and designers.
Chng in his note laid out a list of commitments to staff, and promised that decisions will be made on the same basis for every phase. Leadership will look at whether a role exists in the future, and the exercise is not about cost-cutting or performance ranking, he said.
He added that retraining and redeployment will come first, and also committed to direct communication with staff. The scope of the next phase will be announced by November 2026. Individuals in affected roles will hear from GovTech leaders before anything is made public, he said.
He also committed to a “clearer path forward” and said the agency will make available the priority skills, apprenticeship pathways and people that staff can approach for guidance.
Chng said the agency could have stretched the transition over many years and “relied mainly on natural attrition” but chose not to.
Every year of delay leaves critical systems older and widens the gap between what Singaporeans need and what GovTech’s current model can deliver, he said.
“That is why we have had to make difficult choices,” he said. “The GovTech leadership team and I made these decisions. I stand behind them.” The Straits Times
