“Yes, And” – 16 Civil Service Convention

PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSFORMATION: ACHIEVEMENTS AGAINST TARGETS
BY
CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT
TAN SRI MOHD SIDEK HASSAN

“YES, AND”

16th Civil Service Convention
20th October 2011
INTAN Bukit Kiara
11am- 1pm
Bismillaahir rahmaanir rahim
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakaatuh, Salam Sejahtera dan Salam 1Malaysia

Thank you, Mr Chairman

YBhg. Tan Sri Abu Bakar bin Abdullah
Director General of Public Service
Malaysia

YBhg. Dato’ Dr. Mohd Azhar bin Yahaya
Acting President of the Administrative and Diplomatic Service Association (PPTD),

YBhg. Dr. Aminuddin bin Hassim
Director of INTAN and Chair of Panel

YBhg. Prof Datuk Dr. Norma binti Mansor,
Professor, Department of Administrative Studies and Politics University of Malaya
My Co-Panel Member

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good morning.

YES, AND

Improvisational theatre is a strategy developed to improve actors and acting techniques. So essentially what happens is the actors would use audience suggestions to contribute to the content and direction of the performance as they create dialogue, setting, and plot instantaneously.

2. This has been profound in pushing actors who are used to scripts and prepared line to be impromptu. Fundamental to this technique is that you never push any suggestions away. You take on a suggestion made and say “Yes, And?” and build on that in a collaborative manner as a team. The alternative to “Yes, And” is “No, But”.

3. Some of the basic skills the “Yes, And” technique teaches actors are to listen and be aware of the other players, to have clarity in communication, and confidence to find choices instinctively and spontaneously.

4. In order for an improvised scene to be successful, the actors for instance must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define the physical environment. It is the responsibility of the other actor to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing.

5. “Yes, And…” is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. This technique has been used a lot in the comical series “Whose Line Is It Anyway”. Every new piece of information added helps refine their characters and progress the action of the scene. What started as an improvisation tool for actors has now been expanded into businesses and schools. The technique of saying “Yes, And” forces one to come up with ideas to build on an idea. It takes away the destructive element in an organisation. It sways away the protective components in a person. It is said to have enhanced the qualities of entrepreneurship and creativity in schools and businesses.

6. In particular this technique has brought marked difference in Neuva School, in Hillsborough, California. When a student proposes an idea, the teachers in the School are encouraged to say, “Yes, And” meant to encourage the students to push an idea beyond just an idea to reality. Just saying “Yes” alone doesn’t help push ideas. Asking “Yes, And” pushes the mind to the next step of an idea.

TARGETS AND OUTCOMES

7. This example brings me to the essence of my presentation today. The Public Service of Malaysia has invested much and plenty in projects and improvements. Often we are commended for our delivery, yet we are also criticised for our failure in meeting the expectations of our end users. When my team started preparing for today, we asked our colleagues in JPA, ICU, EPU, MOSTI, Public Complaints Bureau, PEMUDAH and MAMPU to summarise the work that we had done in the following 13 areas:

1. What did we do to enhance our customer service?
2. How did we engage our stakeholders and cynics?
3. Have we broken down our walls of silos and if so how?
4. Has the speed of our decision making and execution improved?
5. What was implemented to purge unnecessary bureaucracy from our system?
6. Again, what was done to eliminate rules and regulations that no longer work?
7. Has our external and internal communications changed, and if so how?
8. What was done in enhancing private sector and civil society participation in decision making?
9. What did we achieve through the implementation of the No Wrong Door work practice?
10. Has our complaints management changed?
11. What did we implement in strengthening our governance and transparency?
12. Have we inculcated a culture of Innovation and Creativity in Public Service? ; and finally
13. What did we do differently from other countries and did we develop the first for anything?

8. I kid you not when I say we received a submission of almost 200 pages from all these departments. Might I add that these are only 6 of the some 720 agencies in the public sector. In wading through these submissions, the one thing that struck me the most is that we have done a lot, yet we may not have duly communicated its relevance to the end users. We have done plenty yet I ask if we have continually tested our delivery with the moving times and changing needs of our end users.

9. Given the time this morning to deliver my points, I will focus on some specific examples of up to 5 on the work that we did in the last 5 years. I will make mention the examples in the following cluster work of:
i. PEMUDAH – which has focused on the improvements in the public and private sectors;
ii. National Strategy Executive Summit (NSES) which cuts across all Ministries using the Blue Ocean Strategy as a base; and
iii. accomplishments of central agencies like EPU, ICU, JPA, MAMPU, PCB.

10. For those who are interested in the 200-page examples which we collated, please contact my Office for these.
Ladies and Gentlemen,

PEMUDAH
11. Since its formation in February 2007, the remits of PEMUDAH has vastly transformed. YABhg Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Badawi, wanted to ensure we did better in our World Bank rankings. He felt the only way to do that was to ensure the principals responsible for the ranking worked and collaborated on improvements. We started by focusing on public service delivery.

12. Over the last 4 years, what was apparent was that even if the public service delivery improved in leaps and bounds, which it has in parts, we cannot as a market improve proportionately if other parts of what makes a market remained stagnant and operated on the principles of “ the way we are”.

13. Some of the notable achievements of PEMUDAH are as follows:

i. Example 1 – Established New Commercial Courts
• What we did – Essentially e-tools were introduced to expedite disposal of cases and unclog backlog of cases. We reduced a backlog of cases from 2 years to within 9 months. In 2010 alone, a total of 5,816 backlog cases have been cleared.

• What next for Commercial Courts? We need to ensure lawyers from private sector run their cases efficiently and do not run parallel cases (also known as double or triple parking) hence causing delays for clients.

ii. Example 2 – Closing a business
• What we did – The Malaysia Department of Insolvency (MdI) (previously Jabatan Insolvensi Malaysia) initiated a project aimed at clearing outstanding winding up cases dated before the year 2000. The Project also initiated one single Insolvency Law. We reduced the backlog by over 9,000 cases since commencement.

• What next for this? – We hope to have standard timelines for winding up by cases classification. So when you apply, you will know upfront if your case will take 6 months, 18 months or 24 months on application. We hope to also reduce administration of abandoned projects which used to take 5 to 15 years for resolution to just 2 years. All these require engagement with stakeholders which we have now started.

iii. Example 3 – We formed a Focus Group on Business Process Reengineering (FGBPR) to identify archaic and irrelevant licenses, permits, rules and regulations and abolish or reduce them for a more conducive business environment.

• What we did – Since July 2011 we reviewed all business license procedures by the 23 ministries and the agencies under their purview. Fifty two percent (52 per cent) of the 780 licences under the respective ministries were abolished. This abolishment resulted in a reduction of an estimated RM792.2million in business license compliant cost since the start of this exercise in July 2011.

• What next for this team? – We must continue our search for areas where business licences are no longer needed or can be simplified.

iv. Example 4 – Immigration Department amended regulations to attract and retained talent and expertise in the country.
• What we did – We removed age limit for expatriates, removed cooling-off period for both expatriates and skilled foreign workers, implemented automatic approval for genuinely-employed expatriates with salaries of more than RM8,000 per month, Spouse Visa for foreigners married to Malaysian is replaced with the Long Term Social Visit Pass (LTSP) that is automatically given for 5 years; and Spouse of Malaysian citizens can work or be involved in any form of business in Malaysia under LTSP without needing to apply for Visit Pass or Employment Pass as previously required.

• What next on this? – We will need to focus on specific categories that will position Malaysia as a high income nation and attract them into Malaysia. We need to also focus on attracting our diasporas back to Malaysia. This requires Immigration Department to work with TalentCorp in attracting them back.

v. Example 5 – In 2010, PEMUDAH launched the PEMUDAH Challenge Season 1. The goal was to invite public officials to provide ideas and identify rules/regulations/ licences which are no longer relevant for effective Government administration. Given the response and the quality of the ideas generated by PEMUDAH Challenge Season 1, PEMUDAH opened the 2nd Season to the public in April this year.

• What we achieved? – Season 1 received 1,105 ideas for improvements, of which 67 won the prize of RM1,000 each. Season 2 brought in a total of 3,946 submissions of which 57 ideas were selected for implementation. Examples of these ideas can be found on our PEMUDAH website.

• What next for PEMUDAH Challenge? – The real challenge is to focus on inculcating the culture of “Yes, And” which I mentioned earlier. We must now go into all stratum of society and encourage them to submit ideas of improvement. One doesn’t have to wait for a competition to do this. We must inculcate a culture in schools, our institutions of higher learning and work place to think of an idea and enable an environment that can bring this idea to reality. This has to be PEMUDAH’s next Challenge. In fact, this is our Nation’s Collective Challenge!

NATIONAL STRATEGY EXECUTIVE SUMMIT (NSES)

14. Permit me to share some examples of our work under the National Strategy Executive Summit which comprise Secretaries General and Heads of Services. This Summit also includes Ministers of certain Ministries to participate in this. The essence of our work here is based on the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy, which is not to out-perform the competition in the existing industry, but to create new market space or a blue ocean, thereby making the competition irrelevant at low cost of differentiation.

15. Fundamental to this work is to ensure collaboration and cooperation between Ministries in creating a new space for public service, which saves resources and eliminates wastage caused by double handling. There is a need to create incentive system for ministries and agencies that share their idle resources. We are now considering utilising part of the savings generated through the sharing of resources for their other initiatives.

16. The following are some of what we have been working on:

i. Example 1 – Collaboration between our police force (PDRM) and our Armed Forces

• What we did? – We introduced Joint Patrolling by the Military and Police. The joint patrol is now operational in Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Kelantan, Penang and KLIA. PDRM and ATM have agreed to expand the joint patrol to Johor and Selangor. We are also training Police Personnel to use Military Facilities.

• What next on this? – The future is to expand on collaboration between PDRM/ATM to other areas. Or to other agencies: if traditional “enemies” like PDRM and ATM can now collaborate, the potential is limitless and they are contagious, in the good sense.

ii. Example 2 – Community Rehabilitation Programme
• What we did – we included several Ministries in this programme to break down silos and share resources. We are working on five rehabilitation camps which are now up and running. We have agricultural activities taking place in Gemas camps, catfish and chilli sold to Mydin, rock melon harvested in the next three months. Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, NGOs and parole officers will be involved in monitoring the prisoners who have been released after participating in the CRP to ensure that they are doing well in the society and not going back to criminal activities. Out of the 310 prisoners who have been released so far, a total of 266 prisoners are engaged in productive activities while only 44 are still looking for employment. The Prison Department will work with Ministry of Human Resources to assist prisoners who have completed the programme with finding employment.

iii. Example 3 – We built basic infrastructure in our rural areas by combining the resources of Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (MRRD), Ministry of Defence (MinDef), Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) and Ministry of Human Resources (MoHR)

• What we did? – 196 houses out of 887 are now complete. The remaining will be completed by end of the year. We built 37 water projects.

• What next for this? – We could do a lot more under this cooperation. But specifically Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Rural Development and the Armed Forces will focus on an expansion plan to build water projects in different areas.

17. Some of the other inter-ministry cum agency collaborations we have started work on under NSES are as follows:

i. Combining unused military land and rural labour for high value-added economic activities
ii. Have 1Malaysia Kiosks offer information service and mobile money service
iii. The participation rate of men in higher education is alarmingly low. We are looking at creative ways to address this issue based on merit without hurting the participation of women. One proposition is to engage Rural Ambassadors to motivate young men to pursue higher education.
iv. Implement high value-added farming, we are working on turning Gopeng Rural Transformation as the global centre of Arowana.
v. Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is also looking at inviting agro-processing companies to set up their plants on idle land.
vi. We are also looking at collaboration between Universities and our Hospitals in research and development (R&D). This would eliminate duplication of setting up research centres in hospitals.

CENTRAL AGENCIES
18. Finally permit me to highlight notable work of our central agencies:

1.Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU)

i. ICU has brought to market BLESS, or otherwise known as the Business Licenses Electronic System. This system creates a single point of access for businesses to submit applications for approval online to various government agencies. BLESS has been implemented for 3 sectors so far i.e. manufacturing, construction and hotel industry. Currently available only in Klang Valley, BLESS will be rolled out nationwide to also cover state agencies by 2013. It will also be expanded to 5 additional sectors – trading, health, education & training, tourism and logistics

ii. ICU has also implemented e-kasih, a coordinated and integrated information system for registration and monitoring the poor household. It was formulated to facilitate all respective agencies in implementing poverty alleviation programs. Accepted as the central data bank by various ministry/agencies, it is now accessible to Ministries/Agencies involved in providing aid/assistance to poor household such as Ministry of Women, Family and Communities, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture. The next stage is to introduce Greater eKasih which will include all beneficiaries to government programs and assistance.

2. Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA)

i. There was time when it was said dealing with JPA can be a nightmare, today you can just SMS us if you need to enquire or know updates regarding pensions, leaves, training and scholarships. No long queues. No public officials. We are working on converting as many services as we possibly can into similar facilities.

ii. In our efforts to enhance skill sets of public officials, in 2009 Cross Fertilisation Programme between public and private sectors, mainly GLCs were introduced. The goal of this programme is to acquire best practices and knowledge sharing through talent swapping for a defined period of time. We are now looking to open this participation to media and MNCs.

3. Economic Planning Unit (EPU)
i. EPU has constantly been criticised for silo planning. We have now implemented a Consultative Approach in Planning where views of stakeholders including state governments and citizens were sought in the preparation of the 10th Malaysia Plan, Government Transformation and Economic Transformation Programmes with the areas of focus based on public and businesses priorities. EPU will be publishing and communicating to the public the progress report and achievement from time to time to help to allay negative perceptions.

ii. Through Prudent Public Finance, EPU’s implementation of Value Management have brought about savings of RM6.4billion (19%) from 72 projects. Further the Outcome-Based Approach not simply for budget but also for projects has enabled EPU to reprioritise programmes and projects against financial capacity

4. The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU)

Some of the notable work of MAMPU are as follows:

i. Development of Public Sector ICT Strategic Plan which provides the blueprint for utilisation and development of ICT in the Service. The Malaysian Public Sector ICT Strategic Plan (2011 – 2015) was launched on 7th July 2011. The 5 programmes under this plan will focus on enhancing service delivery (5 initiatives); enhance capacity and capability (3 initiatives); enhance performance measurement capability (3 initiatives); connected Government (4 initiatives); and sustainable and resilient ICT (7 initiatives). The future work must move towards zero face-to-face Service Delivery and paperless Government. We must also use ICT to inculcate inter-agency information sharing and collaboration.

ii. Mystery Shopping – MAMPU started Mystery Shopping activities from 2008 to assess and monitor service delivery to clients. Mystery Shopping involves targeted, surprise checks to Government offices to ensure the implementation of government directives and to address public complaints as well as to fulfil requests by agencies. 79 mystery shopping were conducted in 2011 alone.

iii. To combat our love for Circular in the Public Service MAMPU is currently reviewing all of the Development Administrative Circulars to ensure its relevancy with the current environment. 76 circulars were reviewed and reduced to 21 circulars. They will be working to consolidating this further.

iv. Public Sector Star Rating System – The Star Rating System (SSR) was implemented in 2007 as a monitoring and evaluation strategy to enhance governance and transparency in the public sector. Soon after its implementation in the public sector, the star rating concept was also introduced in the 144 Local Authorities by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. There has been a marked improvement in the rating of agencies since its pilot implementation in 2007. In 2008, only 1 ministry achieved 5-Star rating compared to 8 ministries in 2010. Similarly, 7 central agencies achieved 5-star rating as opposed to 5 agencies in 2008. The implementation of SSR will be expanded to Land Offices as part of the effort to strengthen land administration in the country.

v. Public Sector Recognition Structure – In response to the Government’s agenda of building an innovative public sector, we introduced a 2-tier recognition structure which comprise – Prime Minister’s Innovation Award (PMIA) introduced in 2010 to encourage innovative initiatives within the public sector. The Second Tier focuses on 4 specific Innovation Awards namely Financial Management, ICT Management, Local Authority Management and District Administration.

5. Public Complaints Bureau (PCB)

• One of the primary areas of weakness in the public sector has been the way we had once managed our complaints and queries. Today we have online forms, with ISPAA implemented in all ministries. ISPAA essentially allows the No Wrong Door work discipline where complaints when submitted is not relevant to one ministry/agency can be transferred online to the relevant ministry. In 2010, 6,065 online complaints (41.3%) were recorded out of 14,700 complaints received

• When it used to take us 90 days to revert on a complaint, today you will by and large get an instantaneous response from us online. Resolution of complaints has dropped to 15 days. This I might add is still not good and we are working to reverting in 3 days. We are also setting up mechanisms to ensure letters written to us are responded (as opposed to acknowledgement) within 3 days. The second most senior person in Ministries and Agencies are responsible for complaints. Status report of Ministries in resolving complaints are made public and in Secretaries General meetings monthly.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
AND SO WHAT NEXT

19. What I have done today given the time constraint is provide you with a laundry list of probably 5 – 10 % of what we delivered in the last 5 year. In essence the examples which I laid out before you tell us a larger picture. It shows us that the nature and output of our work has changed. It has changed when we compare it to what we were doing in the public service some 20 to 30 years ago.

20. Today we are defined by timelines, extrinsic expectations of end users, competitive landscape, reducing global resources and dire need of real and versatile talent. We can no longer just have bodies occupying our service. We can no longer afford public officials doing the same old same old stuff yet expecting to be recognised and promoted because they have reached a certain age or a certain length of service.

OUR SILO MINDS
21. The Service is crying out for unique and all rounded talents. Talents able to bring to the table leadership, creativity, communication skills and sound outcome all in one package. Leaders able to change the areas of their work without waiting to get to a certain grade or level.

22. There is a saying which reads, “A camel is a horse designed by committee”. It is often attributed to outcomes not in pace with vision. Often attributed to a lack of consensus in understanding and approach readily compromises outcome of a vision.

23. Public sector worldwide face a real danger of creating camels as opposed to horse if they don’t differentiate their service and if we choose to remain the way we have always done business. The No Wrong Door discipline which we implemented 4 years ago was geared to breaking down our walls of silos. But those walls are still standing in some parts of our Service essentially in how we think!

24. Attitudes and mindsets cannot be measured by KPIs. They are intangibles. In our focus on the hardware of deliverables the real engine to any delivery is mindset. Mindset is defined by our collective approach to delivery. It is defined by the culture we ultimately inculcate in this system. That culture has to be instilled, has to be imbued. It has to be nurtured from when we are born into the Service as if nurturing a child when it is born. That to me is our greatest World Championship race. Hence my continual emphasis on the “Core Values of the Public Service – The Road Less Travelled”.

25. In the final analysis, many of us are invited into the Service. But few are ever chosen to lead. The next 50 years of this Service must see delivery delivered before its time. We must be able to think of, create and implement service before our time.
26. As leaders we can no longer stop at YES when someone comes up with an idea. We need to start saying, “Yes, And” to ensure that we create creative leaders, innovative principals and outcome-based managers who will take this Service beyond its time and ahead of the curve.

26. When once we were told to be economical with information to the public, today we do so at our own peril. When once we offered information on a “Need to Know Basis”, today we need to offer information for all to know.

27. This said, the Service has worked hard in stakeholder engagement. You have Secretaries Generals and junior officers writing to media and twitting on ideas. This is a great leap in breaking down the walls of “Only I know best”. But we cannot stop here, for this alone isn’t enough to build a relevant and sustainable Malaysia.

28. What’s next for us is to develop a non-traditional and non-stereotypical public service able to persuade our end users that they need a service before they know they need it, able to define the agenda for the country and not be defined, and able to push away the comfort zones to deliver an ordinary day through extraordinary levels of service.

I thank you for listening. More, I thank you for doing. And for continuously mentoring those we need to mentor.

Wabillahittaufik walhidayah
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakaatuh.