SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Inspector-General's Office (IGO) has found areas for improvement in communication about safety down the command chain, Inspector-General Brigadier-General (BG) Tan Chee Wee said on Friday (Feb 28).
"We found that in certain units, the movement or distilling of the safety emphasis down the command chain to the soldiers may not be as strong, and (this) is reflected in our surveys and in our interviews and outcomes," BG Tan told reporters in a telephone interview.
AdvertisementAdvertisementOn Monday, Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How reiterated during his Committee of Supply Budget speech in Parliament that the SAF is committed to training national servicemen more safely.
The IGO was launched in late February 2019 to scrutinise and enforce the SAF’s safety processes following four NS training deaths in 18 months.
[h=3]READ: "I am deeply sorry for the loss" - Ng Eng Hen on recent NS training deaths, vows accountability for every soldier[/h]Last April, it began independent audits on the SAF's formations, which refer to the different groups of units within SAF, to ensure safety policies were being implemented effectively.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe IGO has audited 70 per cent of the formations and their sub-units to date, and expects to finish the rest by September, said BG Tan.
He said the IGO found a "strong command emphasis on safety" at the top level of the three services - the army, air force and navy, with "substantial efforts" to improve safety processes and culture.
But it also found room for improvement.
“We found areas for improvement in open reporting, in the communications between commanders and their soldiers on safety matters, some aspects of training supervision, as well as areas for improvement for National Service (NS) training,” BG Tan said.
“But overall, what we felt is that really, more effort will have to be put in to actually engage the last-mile leadership - these are the platoon commanders and platoon sergeants that really engage their men on a daily basis - so that together, they can internalise safety and engage their men more effectively.”
BG Tan said the IGO has told unit management to focus more on this last-mile leadership, so that rank-and-file soldiers understand the need to emphasise safety and “buy into” efforts to improve it.
[h=3]READ: SAF to restructure intelligence and cyber defence units, acquire new ships for maritime security amid evolving threats[/h][h=3]READ: All NSFs, NSmen to get higher monthly NS allowance in recognition of "contributions"[/h]When it comes to openly reporting safety issues, BG Tan said some rank-and-file soldiers have given feedback that they are worried about offending commanders, although he said this is not “unnatural” for a military organisation with a “rank gradient”.
BG Tan said the IGO is ensuring soldiers are comfortable about openly reporting unsafe behaviour or practices, through the formal education of NS commanders in leadership training schools and regular engagement of unit commanding officers. This includes not unfairly punishing soldiers for reporting, he said.
“That is also covered within our education of our commanders to make sure that they are involved in building a just culture in the area of safety, so that those comments are put out in a more objective and fair manner,” he added.
“Soldiers must be treated fairly as well. Even those who are involved in some of these incidents, we must look at the incident itself to say whether it is just blatant non-compliance with some of these regulations and orders, or was it just an honest mistake.”
To make open reporting easier, safety advocates will be appointed from the rank-and-file, BG Tan said, complemented by other reporting channels like safety hotlines and a mobile application that the SAF hopes to roll out across its services by this year.
BG Tan said the IGO is also working with the services to build an overall safety information system that uses data analytics to analyse trends and share them across the SAF.
“That will help us support some of our decision-making on what kind of interventions are required,” he said, pointing out that these interventions will be translated to SAF-level policies for standardisation.
WHAT WILL BE DONE
Policies that have been implemented include ensuring that units institutionalise “really regular” safety meetings to review trends and monitor implementation, BG Tan said.
“We discovered some of them have merged the safety agenda with some of their regular meetings and sometimes the membership is not optimised to make sure that the commander gets the views from the safety officers on the ground,” he added.
Moving forward, BG Tan said the IGO will re-visit some of the units that need improvement, which he said are in the minority, to ensure they have rectified the issues highlighted and are working to build a stronger safety system and culture.
The Ministry of Defence said the SAF has implemented measures to inculcate a zero-accident mindset.
This includes giving safety greater weight during training evaluations, introducing safety inspections for all high-risk and field training, and institutionalising safety in daily routines through briefings on what to look out for and lessons learnt.
Mr Heng also revealed that MINDEF is looking at expanding programmes where SAF medics go on attachments with the Singapore Civil Defence Force’s (SCDF) national emergency ambulances and the National University Hospital’s Emergency Medicine Department to apply their knowledge in real-life, time-pressured scenarios.
“Discussions are currently underway with both SCDF and the other hospitals to expand the programmes,” he said.
“Through these various initiatives, we hope to build a capable fighting force that trains effectively and safely, and we will continue to hold ourselves to the highest standard.”
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