Over the past five years, the Integrated Government Masterplan (iGov2010) has enabled the Singapore Government to make significant improvements in productivity and supported public agencies in the rollout of new services, enabling them to tap on new channels to address customers' needs. Guided by iGov2010, which preceded the new e-government masterplan eGov2015, government agencies have also re-worked cross-agency processes to enhance customer focus and increase internal efficiency.

Public response to these efforts has been positive. According to the 2010 e-Government Customer Perception Survey, almost nine out of 10 citizens and businesses expressed satisfaction with the quality of government e-services. In the citizens’ survey, which covered 1,200 respondents, 93 per cent also said they would recommend others to transact with the government through e-services.

Capturing three decades of Government e-services in Singapore.

Under iGov2010, the reach of e-services has increased. In addition to the 1,600 government e-services that can be accessed online, more than 300 government mobile services (m-services) have also been implemented, with almost 4 million mobile transactions carried out in 2010. An example of a popular m-service is the annual SMS notification for Secondary 1 posting results, which allows students and their parents or guardians to receive their school posting results from the Ministry of Education via SMS. In the 2010 exercise, some 41,000 students and their parents/guardians benefitted from this service.

Businesses have also enjoyed greater convenience in transacting with the government with the implementation of a Unique Entity Number (UEN) which enables a Singapore-registered entity to transact with any public agency using one ID. To date, some 440,000 entities such as businesses, companies, societies and embassies have been issued with the UEN, which means they only need to use one number when dealing with all 84 government agencies. This represents a big efficiency improvement compared with the past, when there were at least 20 identification numbers issued by 17 government agencies.

Over the past five years, e-engagement efforts have also continued to gain traction, with an increase in the levels of participation via online feedback channels. For example, there has been a three-fold increase in the number of suggestions and feedback received on REACH – the government’s official online feedback portal – since 2006.

Under iGov2010, more than 50 shared services and systems have also been implemented to enhance internal integration within the public sector. An example is ACE or the Alliance for Corporate Excellence, which was rolled out as an integrated human resource, finance and procurement administration system for more than 11 agencies in 2010. The project helped achieve cost savings of 30 per cent compared with having the agencies develop their own systems.

The achievements under iGov2010 have enabled Singapore to gain international recognition as a leader in e-Government. It topped the Waseda University World e-Government Ranking for three consecutive years, from 2009 to 2011, and was consistently ranked amongst the top three in the e-government indices of the World Economic Forum Global IT Report from 2009 to 2011. In the United Nations e-Government 2010 Survey of 192 countries, Singapore was ranked 11th in the e-Government Development Index and 9th in the e-Participation Index.