Singapore’s policy style: statutory boards as policymaking units

Abstract

Statutory boards represent an important feature of Singapore’s effective and efficient model of public administration. Despite their autonomy and separation from the rest of Singapore’s civil service, statutory boards represent policymaking units in their own right, developed and utilized by the government in the achievement of its policy objectives. Based on first-hand interviews and other primary data, this paper provides an analysis of two Singaporean statutory boards: the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Land Transport Authority, focusing in particular on their roles as policymaking units. In doing so, this paper attempts to sketch out and understand Singapore’s unique policy style. This contributes to a better understanding of Asian policy styles in the process, a topic which has thus far received scant attention in the existing policy styles literature.

Keywords:

• policy styles
• regulation
• public administration

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the individuals who have agreed to be interviewed for this research, he is also grateful to M Ramesh and Michael Howlett for their feedback on a previous version of this paper. The author does not receive any financial interest or benefits arising from the direct applications of this research.

Notes

1. The LTV includes COE prices and relevant taxes.

2. The MAS does not operate an inflation-targeting policy. Instead, the exchange rate is used as the main monetary policy tool for controlling inflation. The MAS justifies the use of the exchange rate to manage inflation by noting that imports make up a large portion of domestic consumption (Menon 2013).

3. Core inflation excludes private road transport and accommodation costs. For the period of January–February 2013, core inflation was 1.5% y-o-y (MAS Monetary Policy Statement, 12 April 2013)