SINGAPORE - Recently revised social service sector salary ranges provide more flexibility to hire employees at various competency levels, and to plan for their progression according to experience and performance, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua on Monday.
For merged job roles, the starting salary guidelines took reference from the blend of the merged grades, and are higher than the starting salaries of the lower merged roles before the review, he added.
Mr Chua was responding to questions in Parliament on job roles and pay guidelines for social service sector staff.
It had been announced in March that sector salaries would go up by between 4 per cent and 15 per cent from April 1. The salary guidelines were last reviewed by the Ministry for Social and Family Development (MSF) and National Council of Social Service (NCSS) in 2018.
But some had noticed from the latest guidelines that the recommended starting pay for senior care staff had fallen, as had the reference point for care staff.
Mr Chua said sector salaries are reviewed regularly to ensure that salaries in social service agencies (SSAs) remain competitive against comparable roles in competing markets.
Skills maps, which outline the range and levels of skills and competencies required for each job role, were developed and validated with representatives from the sector, the academia and the government, he said.
Consequently, some job roles were merged or right-sized. This includes mapping the senior care staff role to social service assistant job grades, while reclassifying social work associates more appropriately to the social work associate and senior social work associate roles, he added.
The roles of executive, programme coordinator, programme executive and volunteer executive were merged into a single executive role.
Social worker (entry) and social worker also became a single social worker role, while therapist (degree) and therapist (diploma) became a single therapist role.
Organisation budget ranges were also adjusted for head of agency roles.
He said NCSS has been supporting SSAs to implement the guidelines, and to ensure that employees are paid commensurately.
“Current staff should not have their salaries reduced as a result of the changes to the job roles,” he stressed. “SSAs should continue to pay staff competitively, including paying above the guidelines if they are able to do so, in order to attract and retain quality manpower.”
Referring to a Facebook post on April 15 by the Healthcare Services Employees’ Union (HSEU), Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong GRC) observed that the HSEU was not consulted for the review, although support staff in healthcare sector share similarities in skill sets with the social service sector.
Mr Chua replied that while MSF did not consult unions for the latest review, it may be possible to involve them in future reviews.
Regarding Mr Louis Ng’s (Nee Soon GRC) question on whether MSF follows up with the SSAs on whether they are able to meet the new salary guidelines, he said that MSF works with NCSS and relevant SSAs, if there are cases where actual salaries “do not quite match up” to what has been stated in the guidelines.
