NCSS to expand role as sector developer

One of its main focus areas is improving user-centric service delivery.

The National Council of Social Service (NCSS) is set to expand its role beyond a membership body to deliver stronger outcomes for social service users as a sector developer.

As a sector developer, NCSS will focus on three key areas, including improving user-centric service delivery by coordinating with government ministries and stakeholders, strengthening capability building through organisational and professional development, and building a robust ecosystem by rallying community support and encouraging sustainable philanthropy and corporate volunteerism.

“NCSS has been the change-maker for the social service sector through the years and will continue to do so,” said Anita Fam, president of NCSS.

“However, as we face increasingly complex societal issues, it is timely and necessary to re-examine this scope of work, think beyond our membership, which already covers more than 80% of all SSAs, and adopt a broader ecosystem lens to serve the needs of our communities more effectively as a sector developer,” she noted.

To facilitate the transition, NCSS is actively engaging social service agencies (SSAs) and sector partners to gather feedback on proposed amendments to the NCSS Act.

“NCSS has started engaging our members to hear from them how we might better support their work and how we might better support them to meet service users’ needs,” said Tan Li San, chief executive of NCSS.

“In the spirit of ForwardSG, we are also consulting various stakeholders for feedback on our expanded sector developer role and the consequent changes we will need to make to the NCSS Act,” she said.

Originally established as the Singapore Council of Social Service (SCSS) in the 1960s, the organisation was created to represent the interests of SSAs. SCSS pioneered service models for senior care, disability, and rehabilitation services and launched the Community Chest to raise funds for the sector.

In 1992, the government recognised SCSS's potential for a broader impact and established NCSS through the NCSS Act.

A NOTE FROM SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia