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Human resources and capacity issues

Six respondents see SPAD’s size and manpower as the main stumbling block for preventing it from operating effectively. They mainly cited the limited number of personnel in the enforcement team as being its most problematic manpower shortfall. Respondent G13 commented:

“Now we are operating and at the same time building our capacity, even structurally, we are just building our house. So, that's the challenge – if you ask me, that's the biggest challenge that the commission is facing now. I think ultimately we are focusing on capacity building, we have not yet made our presence felt”

(respondent G13).

Recruits for SPAD were mainly sourced from the local transport industry, and Respondent G14 claimed that there was a lot of job-hopping between SPAD and transport operators at the initial stages of its operations.

Respondents G5, G9 and O3 all raised concerns on this matter, worrying that SPAD had not done enough background checks on their new recruits. It was pointed out that one of the senior managers in SPAD was associated with mismanagement in his previous engagement with a bus company, and that such events affect the image of SPAD.

Besides concerns about the number of personnel, there were also worries raised about the expertise of SPAD employees, mainly from respondents outside SPAD. Respondent G17 argued that SPAD must recruit experienced people, but not necessarily from the government. She felt that the failure to recruit the right talent may result in wasting resources. In the same vein, respondent O1 mentioned that the learning curve becomes expensive with fresh, inexperienced employees leading SPAD. Respondent G8 was of view that technical expertise are crucial for the top management in SPAD to facilitate the decision-making process and assess proposals submitted by the stakeholders without having to rely too much on consultants. This respondent believed that the current senior managers and the members of the commission do not have strong enough transport backgrounds.

SPAD’s lack of knowledge about the transport industry was raised as an important issue by transport operators. Respondent O3 said that SPAD has recruited a lot of inexperienced people and that they have been working in isolation without engaging with the transport operators. In addition, respondent O4 claimed that SPAD’s lack of understanding concerning the history of the industry made them difficult to communicate with, and prevents SPAD from being able to adequately respond to the suggestions made by transport operators. This causes frustration among the industry players – a situation that is made worse when SPAD does not engage with this group of stakeholders on its formulation of policy.

According to SPAD respondents, its limitations in terms of its shortage in technical expertise and lack of personnel mean that it is heavily dependent on consultants, and is considering outsourcing its enforcement role to a private company as a result. They claimed that the LTA Singapore follows a similar model, and that it has proven successful. On the other hand, Respondent G1 said that SPAD has to depend on consultants not only because of its capacity issues, but also due the fact that they are not able to work effectively with the other actors in their sector. According to this respondent, SPAD has been unable to focus on goods vehicles because of its capacity issues, even though it has the necessary powers to do so. He added that to remedy these problems, SPAD is creating an advisory committee consisting of experts from the transport industry to provide it with technical advice.

Some respondents who were directly involved in the creation of SPAD (mainly those from the EPU) felt that SPAD’s capacity problems are a teething issue that will get resolved over time. They held that the main issue with SPAD’s human resources management is its limited autonomy in recruitment (due to its dependence on government grants and the government’s new recruitment policy for addressing the budget crisis).

Institutional memory

According to one respondent from SPAD, less than 40% of the former CVLB and DOR staff chose to join SPAD, with most of these being junior officers who have a limited understanding of the industry. Respondents from the DOR and the CVLB provided a number of reasons for not wanting to join SPAD. Respondent G8 said that SPAD did not try to accommodate the senior officers from the CVLB and the DOR. They were not offered senior management positions, and hence joining SPAD was seen as a demotion

rather than an advance in their careers. Respondent G5 said that many ex-DOR and CVLB staff did not join SPAD because it failed to make them attractive offers with clear service schemes, and that there were differences in the pay scheme offered to private sector recruits and civil servants.

Respondent G8 shared details of his short engagement with SPAD. This respondent was made to report to someone who was very much junior to him, something which rarely happens in the civil service, where age, wisdom and experience are generally given the priority for promotions and senior positions according to Respondent O1. Similarly, Respondent G9 felt that she was not needed and decided not to join SPAD because it started making disparaging remarks about the CVLB without actually understanding the constraints that they faced in the previous regime. She said that if she had joined SPAD, she would have been blamed for all the wrongdoing in the past. Respondent G8 confirmed G9’s claims:

“As a new organisation, if hoping to make changes, you should not disparage what’s been done by people in the past, it looks as though they are not efficient. CVLB did not work effectively, but they have reasons why they couldn’t do, CVLB was under a lot of political pressure” (respondent G8).

On the other hand, respondents O1 and G4 observed that as many of the senior officers in CVLB had close links with the transport operators and were thus associated with corruption, they probably refrained from joining SPAD out of fear of being accused of or questioned about past wrongdoing.

However, all these factors have resulted in SPAD lacking institutional memory.

There are mixed views about the importance of institutional memory for SPAD. All respondents (except G1) who talked about institutional memory of the DOR thought that it was important because numerous technical issues are involved in the management of the railway, and the former staff of the DOR have the technical expertise that SPAD requires. However, respondent G1 thought that SPAD needed to start afresh, and that the required technical railway knowledge and skills could be learned.

On the other hand, five out of the eleven respondents that talked about the institutional memory of the CVLB felt that SPAD did not need its institutional memory, and thought that it was best for it to start afresh. These respondents mainly talked about issues surrounding the Bumiputera agenda, political interference with the CVLB, and corruption within it. They

asserted that a complete ‘cut off’ from the previous licensing regime was crucial. Respondent G1 said that the institutional memory of the CVLB was not important as it performed poorly, and because the new licensing mechanism under SPAD is entirely different to that under the CVLB. Instead of licensing individual vehicles, as the CVLB did, SPAD issues licenses to the operators. Respondents P2 and G13 also noted that with the new licensing mechanism, SPAD requires CVLB’s previous licensing data, but not any information about its practices.

However, nearly all of the respondents felt that the complete absence of institutional memory was dangerous for SPAD, as without this there is nothing to prevent them from repeating previous mistakes and no reference points. Respondent O2 commented:

“Institutional memory is very important. You know why? Because in order for you to move forward, to make the change, you have to know the history, the processes and what not, as well as the skills and knowledge of the people in LPKP. If you don’t know the history, you cannot tap the brains of these people [and] how you are going to move forward, how you are going to benchmark yourself?

(respondent O2).

SPAD’s leadership

All the respondents stressed that SPAD should be free from political intervention, and ten respondents questioned the rationale of appointing a chairman who is a politician but not a cabinet minister, as well as his appropriateness in terms of transport experience. An ex-employee of SPAD highlighted the difficulties of working under a chairman who wants to be in control of the operational matters. The chairman interprets the act in a slightly different manner, and is of the view that he is an executive chairman who has to be directly involved in the daily management of SPAD. However, discussion with one of the officers in the Attorney General’s office reveals that the chairman of SPAD is a non-executive chairman and that the day-to-day operation is to be handled by the CEO. Respondents from SPAD pointed out that differences in perceptions about the chairman’s role also create interpersonal conflicts between the CEO and the chairman, and hence they are not able to work collaboratively. Respondent G1 commented:

“The chairman feels that it is his responsibility to ensure that SPAD is operating smoothly, but the CEO thinks that the chairman is meddling” (respondent G1).

The strained relationship between the key actors in SPAD led the SPAD respondents to hold posit a communication breakdown in the organisation, and they reported that one of SPAD’s main challenges has been to move everyone towards the same agenda. It was also pointed out that the CEO has been extremely busy with the MRT project, and has thus had limited time for other matters, such as building networks with the other stakeholders including the civil servants.

The personality of the CEO was also criticised by the respondents who have had worked with him. A board member of SPAD said that the CEO had hinted that he does not want the board members of SPAD to get involved in operational matters. This respondent highlighted the importance of personality in leaders, especially in a newly established agency like SPAD, and said that although SPAD needs help, the CEO is too egotistical to seek it.

An ex-SPAD employee revealed more about the personality of the CEO. He said that the CEO, with his consultancy background is a strategist and carries himself well, but he is not a grounded person, and this is his first experience as a CEO. This respondent blamed the poor leadership in SPAD for its failure to manage the merger of the DOR and the CVLB into SPAD smoothly. Respondent O1 and G8 were more concerned with the technical expertise, pointing out that the CEO does not have the appropriate technical knowledge in transport to lead an important organisation like SPAD.

6.5.4 Reflections

With the creation of SPAD, a dedicated transport body has been produced to champion the land public transport sector through amalgamating the powers from three agencies. This body has reduced the coordination and fragmentation issues that existed in the previous institutional framework to some degree and put an end to the CVLB regime, which was associated with mismanagement, corruption and politicisation.

One of the aims of this research was also to identify the winners and losers of this reform. Flyvbjerg (2001) and Chisholm (2000) argue that in any institutional reform, there will be a relationship between powers and outcomes which entail that somebody will gain and somebody will lose. The creation of SPAD clearly benefits the EPU. In the previous institutional arrangement, when there was an absence of dedicated authority for land public transport, the EPU had to play a substantial role to fill this gap.

However, being a central agency, its role was limited to the federal level.

With the creation of SPAD, these functions have now been delegated, and besides reducing the administrative burden on the EPU, SPAD is also in a better position to facilitate planning and manage land public transport at the local level, with its planning and licensing powers providing an effective tool for streamlining and integrating services provided on the ground. The other winners are the operators and the public. SPAD acts as a one-stop centre for operators to sort out licensing issues, and the public has a dedicated platform for their feedback and disputes. The main loser in this reform is the MOT, which has lost its powers for railway regulation to SPAD with the cessation of the DOR. In addition, the RTD, which is an agency under the MOT, has to share its enforcement powers for land transport with SPAD.

The Ministry of Tourism has also lost its powers for regulating tourism vehicles and hire and drive cars to SPAD. Interestingly, those who did not lose powers to SPAD did not show any signs of feeling threatened or being jealous, and they provided more balanced and positive responses to working with SPAD.

The Prime Minister is probably too busy to look into an operational body like SPAD, as one of the respondents notes, and it could be that he has lost interest in it, as some researchers have speculated (Politt and Bauckaert, 2011; Peters, 2010), pointing out that politicians have short-term interests in some reform programmes either because they do not fit with their personal agendas and priorities or because they do not produce quick wins, as they can take many years before actual results can be seen. However, in SPAD’s case, the Prime Minister has probably achieved his agenda and hence he finds that his further deep involvement no longer an interest to him. This shows that reforms occur in a window of opportunity. They play out over a period of time and it is important to understand how it plays out because of the fuzziness of boundaries and the imperfect reform process which requires good governance through network.

There were also concerns about the Prime Minister’s time and availability for SPAD and his direct political control over it. The result of this has been the creation of a situation called the pollution of remit, in which an organisation is forced to function outside its original jurisdiction due to political directives, as has also been seen with the MRT. Besides the Prime Minister, SPAD has another political master as its chairman who is not a full minister, and this complicates the structure and effectiveness of SPAD’s leadership further – because the ultimate powers still vested with the Prime Minister.

SPAD experienced a number of difficulties when it became operational. The managerial autonomy it enjoys as a semi-autonomous body has been used to recruit heavily from the private sector, and this has disturbed its functioning as a public service. Moreover, this private sector recruitment is one reason why SPAD has not been successful in building a good network with other stakeholders, as there is a cultural clash between SPAD and civil servants due to differences in practices and working ethics. Other transport agencies often try to maintain their own turf and show off their ‘authority’, which acts as a barrier to building good working relationships. Moreover, the social capital, which involves building trust, networks and understanding, has not been built between SPAD and other stakeholders in the sector. As McCarten and Vyasulu (2006) point out, this process takes time, especially after a major reorganisation. The new networks that have been created by the reforms have not yet been stabilised, with those from the government sector thinking that SPAD is not interested in engaging with them, although this shows that they are not keen on engaging with SPAD either.

Governance has to be established through these networks, and it is worth noting that one of the possible factors in the success of the TfL and the LTA Singapore has been their ability to engage with all the important stakeholders in an effective manner.

Although SPAD is a new organisation, it was established by merging two old organisations – the CVLB and the DOR – which have existed for 23 and 19 years respectively. During SPAD’s planning, it was envisaged that the majority of the CVLB and DOR staff would be absorbed into SPAD, and thus that SPAD would be able to operate smoothly with the existing background knowledge or ‘institutional memory’ of the DOR and the CVLB to hand.

However, this did not happen as SPAD chose to start afresh with new recruits to disassociate it from the corruption of the previous licensing and management regime. This left it in the dark, without sufficient knowledge and not knowing history of the industry, and thereby liable to repeat past mistakes. This shows that breaking path dependence comes at a cost.

SPAD has struggled to improve its capacity both in terms of manpower and technical knowledge. SPAD’s management needs to strike a balance, and decide if they want to do the things themselves – which would require them to access many more resources – or to use the available networks instead.

Klijn et al. (2010) used the policy network to show how different actors have different resources and to demonstrate that no one organisation can generate all the resources it needs. This shortcoming was seen in the SPAD

case study. Although there is a plethora of resources and expertise available within the government that SPAD could tap into, its failure to build networks with government actors and utilise their resources has left them isolated and thus struggling with poor capacity. SPAD seems to have ignored civil servants and recruited personnel from the private sector who are dynamic and competent but lack the experience and expertise of the local transport industry, and this has backfired on them.

Most of the respondents held there to be a number of problems concerning the way SPAD had been set up, and had a variety of suggestions about how it could be better improved. Those who were involved in the creation of SPAD admitted that certain issues were overlooked due to time constraints, and a lot of issues only arose after SPAD had come into existence. Hall and Taylor (1996) argued that most institutional reforms do not achieve their stated goal because of hidden agendas, such as improving the public perceptions of institutions rather than increasing their efficiency. In SPAD’s case, the critical aim focus was on cleaning up the sector and creating a dedicated body to champion the land public transport sector instead of creating an effective single transport authority vested with all the requisite powers. Hence, SPAD is still struggling to justify its role, and different agencies have different views over what it should do. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that decisions can often not be reversed in

Most of the respondents held there to be a number of problems concerning the way SPAD had been set up, and had a variety of suggestions about how it could be better improved. Those who were involved in the creation of SPAD admitted that certain issues were overlooked due to time constraints, and a lot of issues only arose after SPAD had come into existence. Hall and Taylor (1996) argued that most institutional reforms do not achieve their stated goal because of hidden agendas, such as improving the public perceptions of institutions rather than increasing their efficiency. In SPAD’s case, the critical aim focus was on cleaning up the sector and creating a dedicated body to champion the land public transport sector instead of creating an effective single transport authority vested with all the requisite powers. Hence, SPAD is still struggling to justify its role, and different agencies have different views over what it should do. This is made all the more difficult by the fact that decisions can often not be reversed in