Mr Yip Hon Weng asked the Minister for Social and Family Development in respect of the NCSS Social Service Sector Salary Guidelines (a) what is the percentage of Social Service Agencies currently paying their employees in accordance with these recommendations; and (b) what specific measures are being taken to support the other agencies which have not met the salary guidelines to close the wage gap.
Answer
Currently, about 80% of employees in Social Service Agencies (SSAs) are paid according to the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) Sector Skills and Salary Guidelines, which I will call “salary guidelines” from now on.
1 Over the years, the Ministry for Social and Family Development has reviewed and raised the salary guidelines so that wages in the social service sector remain competitive against comparable roles in competing markets. Correspondingly, MSF adjusts programme funding to enable funded SSAs to pay employees according to the latest guidelines. SSAs should also review and adjust their operational budgets, so they can sustainably meet operational needs. Our data suggests that SSAs have generally been keeping pace with these updates to the salary guidelines.
2 Over the past three years, MSF and NCSS have worked with SSAs to progressively improve adherence to the salary guidelines. Beyond current efforts, such as supporting SSAs in enhancing their Human Resource practices, we engage SSA leaders on their organisations’ salary adherence, and benchmark them to their peers. In the next few years, we will further step up measures to increase adherence.