Oral Reply to Parliamentary Question on Post-Retirement Officers in the SPF by Mr Desmond Lee, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of National Development

Question:

Mr Desmond Choo: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) in the past three years, how many post-retirement officers has the Career Transition Office helped to place in new jobs; (b) of these officers, what is the percentage breakdown in terms of junior and senior officers; and (c) what types of jobs have they been placed in.

Answer:

1. The Singapore Police Force set up in April 2016 a new unit, the Career Transition Office. This Office brings together all the existing efforts and programmes to help retiring officers.  As the unit is newly set up, there are no statistics available as yet on its work.

2. The new Career Transition Office will give greater focus in our efforts to help retiring police officers secure good jobs after they leave the Police Force.

3. Even before the Career Transition Office was set up, the Police Force has for many years been organising training programmes in areas such as resume writing, job interview techniques and entrepreneurship skills, to help retiring officers in their job search. In addition, Police would also share job opportunities from other government ministries and public sector agencies when these ministries and agencies approached Police to recruit retiring police officers.  Over the past three years, about 300 police officers have received training for their post retirement job search.

4. With the Police Career Transition Office, we will be able to do more.  Efforts to help retiring police officers will be stepped up, and done more purposefully. The Office will proactively source for suitable job opportunities for retiring police officers.  The Office will also provide career counselling to prepare our officers psychologically for the job search and the transition from uniformed life to civilian life; equip them with new skills that are in demand; and actively reach out to prospective employers where our officers' experience and knowledge would be valued, e.g., companies which need professionals with expertise in contingency and security planning, regulatory compliance and enforcement. The Office will also collaborate with partners such as WDA and e2i to tap on their experience in this area.

5. Besides Police, the other Home Team Departments will also structure similar services for their retiring officers.