Govt feedback unit will reach out to niche groups, bridge dialogue on thorny issues: Tan Kiat How

SINGAPORE – In August 2022, a group of sex workers sat down with civil servants from government feedback unit Reach for anonymous, one-on-one chats.

They were sceptical at first. But over time, the 17 sex workers opened up about their concerns, including the cost of living, qualifying for government support and job safety.

Working with these niche groups is part of Reach’s next phase of growth, said its chairman Tan Kiat How. It will also dig deeper to learn why people hold the views they do and work to bring differing camps together, he added.

Mr Tan, who is Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information, noted that Singapore society has become more diverse.

Different groups hold strong views on issues such as sustainability, animal welfare and geopolitics, while digitalisation and social media create echo chambers of information or beliefs that may be “very skewed or even patently false”.

These are trends Reach is aware of as it focuses on its next phase, said Mr Tan.

Mr Tan was speaking to reporters ahead of Reach’s 40th anniversary celebration,

launched by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on March 29.

Acknowledging the same trends, PM Wong said he had given Reach a new mission, which is to build bridges in an increasingly diverse society.

Public engagement must go beyond government-to-people dialogues, and Reach must enable people-to-people conversations to build trust and mutual understanding, he added.

As part of the 40th anniversary celebrations, Reach will organise a series of such sessions. The sessions will gather civil society leaders to engage one another on difficult issues such as race and religion, social mobility and the impact of rapid technological changes, said the Prime Minister.

“Building these bridges will not be easy. But we will take the first step. And with time, it will become smoother and easier,” he said.

Reach was set up in 1985 by then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Known as the Feedback Unit then, it was meant as an avenue for citizens to give feedback and suggestions on policies.

Mr Tan said Reach channels feedback to government agencies, where it helps to shape policies.

For example, it had sought views on the cost of living from homemakers, retirees living alone and low-income families, among others.

This contributed to Budget 2025 measures to help seniors and families with more children defray expenses, he said.

Wider outreach, deeper engagement

In the coming years, Reach will “reach wider, reach deeper, and reach together”, said Mr Tan.

This means engaging different groups, but also trying to better understand the reasons for differing views, said Mr Tan.

He gave the example of how some older Singaporeans may raise concerns about high housing prices even though they are already home owners, because they are worried about whether housing will stay affordable for their children.

It also means bringing together groups with very different viewpoints, on topics such as Gaza, said Mr Tan. He was referring to the Israel-Hamas conflict there.

To teach organisations how to have meaningful dialogues on such sensitive issues, Reach is planning to put out a toolkit of best practices by early 2026.

When asked about some of the difficult topics Reach had tackled, Mr Tan said that sometimes for more sensitive issues, it helps to not solicit feedback too openly.

When the Government was looking at the

repeal of Section 377A

and the changes to the Constitution on the definition of marriage, what was meant to be a closed survey for certain groups was spread much more widely than expected, said Mr Tan.

This made it harder to distil the responses they were looking for, he said.

Parliament repealed Section 377A of the Penal Code, a decades-old law criminalising gay sex, in November 2022.

Project X, a non-profit organisation that provides social, emotional and health services to people in the sex industry, supported the Reach dialogue in 2022.

Its executive director Vanessa Ho said the workers, who were mostly local, said they felt heard and that their concerns were taken seriously.

“It’s powerful because it’s a very niche community and policies tend to be written for the majority. There are sometimes blind spots,” added Ms Ho.

Asked if feedback can be made public for the use of other groups, such as those in the social service sector, Mr Tan said it is up to ministries to decide. He pointed out that they also get feedback from their own channels, which contributes to a fuller picture.

“Sometimes, when the groups are small, the sample size is small, it is maybe a slightly skewed perspective of an issue, but still a valuable one,” said Mr Tan.

“Even if that perspective may be from a small group, you want to make sure this is heard by the right decision-makers. But if you just publish a very skewed perspective, (it) is very unfair, unrepresentative.”

Experimenting with different ways to gather feedback

In recent years, Reach has also expanded the ways in which it gathers feedback.

It has tried push notifications through the Singpass digital identity app and surveys sent through an SMS link.

In 2023, it solicited pre- and post-Budget feedback through QR codes on tables in some restaurants under The Black Hole Group. The group’s co-founder Mustaffa Kamal is on Reach’s advisory panel.

Mr Mustaffa said the hope was that a more relaxed setting would allow people to give feedback more freely. Nearly 220 responses were received over a few weeks.

As a panel member, he has also been organising closed-door dialogues between those in the food and beverage sector and the authorities.

“Surveys, reports and data can sometimes be a bit flat and not tell the full picture... These conversations take time, but give more understanding and a bit more colour to the entire picture,” he said.

As a smaller outfit with some 30 officers, Reach can be more experimental in how it gathers feedback, said Mr Tan.

It introduced cartoon characters in 2021, which it used to engage Singaporeans through polls, comic strips and a physical mascot.

In 2022, it launched a free online game aimed at youth, which allowed players to control Reach characters as they learnt about labour policies. At the end of the game, they could give their views on local and foreigner workforce integration.

The game was live for three months and 544 responses were received.

“The DNA of Reach is that we don’t do things that definitely succeed – if you do so, then we’ll always be just following. (If you) do something that’s going to be more experimental, at the frontier, it’s okay when you don’t succeed,” Mr Tan said.

“In not succeeding, we also learn. And we want to share this learning with everyone.”