All abused-child deaths known to social services will be independently reviewed: Desmond Lee

SINGAPORE – A new social services coordination centre will be set up to better identify and coordinate child abuse cases, while all child deaths will be independently reviewed in future, in the wake of four-year-old Megan Khung’s death.

Mr Desmond Lee, Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration, announced this and other measures to improve safeguards in the child protection system in Parliament on Nov 5.

The new social services coordination centre, supported by technology, will help “us to better detect, sense-make and connect dots for cases from different touchpoints, such as social services, education, (the) pre-school community and other sectors”, he said.

The centre will also provide tighter links to police operations.

Mr Lee was responding to MPs’ calls for more centralised coordination and data integration in managing child abuse cases. A total of 15 MPs filed questions on Nov 5 about Megan’s case, including Mr Xie Yao Quan (Jurong Central), Ms Rachel Ong (Tanjong Pagar GRC) and Mr Gabriel Lam (Sembawang GRC).

They asked the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) if the proposed measures by a review panel on Megan’s case are sufficient to close systemic gaps or if stronger reforms are needed.

The independent panel,

which released its findings

on Megan’s case

on Oct 23

, found a series of breaches by agencies handling the case, including a Child Protective Service (CPS) officer failing to log calls by Megan’s pre-school seeking help and police officers not following procedures.

Megan

suffered more than a year of horrific abuse by her mother and the woman’s then boyfriend

, and died in February 2020.

MPs also asked about the threshold needed for the CPS to remove a child from his or her abusive family. There were questions too on whether MSF, which oversees CPS, would convene review panels to look into cases of children who have been abused to death.

Mr Lee said that all deaths of abused children known to social services would be independently reviewed in future. MSF will consult with the social service sector on how best to do this, he added.

This is unlike in the past, where the ministry carried out bilateral reviews of incidents with the relevant social service agency.

In his response, Mr Lee also addressed questions on how MSF will strengthen oversight and systems in the child protection field, and said the ministry fully accepts the panel’s recommendations.

These include setting up an appeals mechanism to address differing views on how a case should be managed, and ensuring that agencies handling child protection should be given adequate resourcing.

He added that MSF, which is the lead for the national child protection system, will work with the social service sector to implement these recommendations progressively by end-2026.

He said: “There were opportunities to pick up on the abuse, which might have prevented Megan’s death. Our responses clearly fell short.

“On behalf of all the agencies and organisations concerned, we are deeply sorry for the outcome, the lapses at the Child Protective Service and the Singapore Police Force, as well as the missed opportunities at the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA).

“We should have done better.”

By the first quarter of 2026, MSF will set up a “triage assessment panel” to determine which agency is best placed to manage a case, said Mr Lee.

Triaging refers to assessing inquiries to determine the urgency of and appropriate response in safeguarding a child’s safety.

By early 2026, pre-schools will report potential child abuse cases directly to the National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Helpline. The panel had recommended that MSF review ECDA’s role in triaging potential child abuse cases.

Mr Lee said MSF will continue to manage staff workload and ensure that social workers are adequately resourced.

He said: “The risk of burnout is real and it is difficult to attract and retain people in child protection work.”

He said that for CPS, now known as Protective Service (PSV), the number of child protection officers has doubled from about 45 in 2019 to more than 90 in 2024, and will continue to expand.

This has reduced the average caseload for each officer from about 40 to 35 today. Support staff were also brought in to handle ancillary tasks, freeing protection officers to focus on social investigations and supervision.

For the broader social service sector, the average caseload has been stable at around 18 to 21 cases per worker, said Mr Lee, though this can vary between 12 and 30 cases per worker, depending on the centre.

MSF will also set up a Protection Practitioners Care Fund to implement capability building and well-being initiatives for protection professionals, he added. More details of the new fund will be announced in 2026.

In response to MPs who asked when the PSV would intervene to remove a child from his or her abusive parents, Mr Lee said that existing thresholds are appropriate.

“We do not and should not intervene unnecessarily,” he said.

“When there are reasonable grounds to believe that a child is in need of care and protection, the law empowers child protection officers to step in, to implement safety plans or even remove the child from the home.”

Mr Lee noted that excessive physical discipline is considered abuse.

He said: “However, we will make clear that while we respect the role of parents in disciplining their children, excessive physical discipline will be considered and reported as abuse.”

Mr Lee said that Megan’s death in 2020 had prompted further enhancements to protocols, on the back of a child protection system that has been strengthened over the years.

But there is still “much more that can be done”, he added.

One area, he said, is to regularly audit agencies managing child abuse cases, such as the PSV, to ensure accountability and transparency.

He said the PSV has been working with child protection case management agencies to surface cases where they assess that the risk level exceeds what the agencies can handle.

MSF has started contacting other social service agencies that are not child protection case management agencies, to surface all suspected child abuse cases.

He said the PSV does periodic practice reviews with external consultants to determine whether officers have assessed a case accurately and complied with protocols. MSF plans to increase the frequency of such practice reviews and expand the audit scope, and to implement this by 2026.

The ministry is also working to improve protocols and coordination with the police for missing children.

For example, child protection case management agencies now have to file a police report within 24 hours and alert the PSV.

The PSV also reports cases to the police within 24 hours.

For cases assessed to be higher risk as they involve serious physical harm or sexual abuse, the police would immediately intervene to ensure the child’s safety.

And if the police come across a case of suspected child abuse, before they start their investigation, they would contact MSF to make plans for the child’s safety, among other things.

Mr Lee added that protocols and structured tools should guide – and not replace – critical thinking and judgment.

“We must never reduce child protection work to a mere checkbox system. Instead, we need to build trust and relationships over and on top of existing systems and procedures between parents, the community, social services and the Government,” he said.

“Each time a tragedy like Megan’s occurs, we feel anger, sorrow and regret. Whether we are members of society or social work professionals, we must work together and do our utmost to protect our children.

“Let us re-dedicate ourselves to protecting every child and vulnerable person, never forgetting those whom we have lost.”