LETTERS: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is far-reaching, affecting all sectors including public administration.
Civil service across the world have seen the introduction of remote work as the new norm, digital service delivery, virtual service teams, and new portfolios.
In Malaysia, the public service has been on the frontlines and been forced to adapt, anticipate, and manage challenges across government and society.
This Public Service Day, we recognise and celebrate their resilience and commitment to the country, as we continue to navigate the onslaught of the pandemic.
The way forward should include:
1. Upskilling and reskilling opportunities for our policymakers and civil service.
The success of digital transformation is determined by our ability to use technology. While the pandemic has exposed the cracks and fissures in our systems, it also provides an opportunity to strategise and strengthen economic, societal, and infrastructural resilience, effectiveness, and responsiveness.
As we strive to achieve 80 per cent end-to-end online government services by 2025, we must consider the shifts in mindset, skills and technology that are required for our civil service to transform to achieve the government's goal of digital transformation. Digital literacy and data literacy, for instance, have become critical skills within the civil service, for both technical and non-technical personnel.
It is encouraging to note that Thrust One of the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint seeks to achieve digital transformation in the public sector. This includes efforts to develop and upskill civil servants with digital skills, across all grades and schemes, by 2025.
Technology has changed how we solve problems, design policy and deliver citizen services. The way forward requires parallel investments in technology and skills development – making sure people have the requisite skills to participate in an increasingly digital society, shared Dr Helmy Haja Mydin, Chief Executive Officer, Social & Economic Research Initiative (SERI).
He added, this must include multi stakeholder efforts in partnership with our public service – the bedrock of the government's work to provide citizen services and ensure continuity throughout the pandemic.
2. Regulatory transformation for digital transformation.
Future-proof and robust regulatory frameworks must be fortified to ensure the public sector is able to achieve its aim to establish an agile and conducive regulatory environment for digital economy development.
Agile policymaking should encompass regulations, policies, systems, infrastructure, resources, and contingency plans to anticipate enable quick responses to crises like pandemics. A data-driven, and human-centric civil service would enable us to build future-readiness, develop inclusive policies and deploy responsive services to address and alleviate inequalities.
As an independent non-partisan thinktank working at the intersection of technology and society, SERI is grateful for the partnership with the Economic Planning Unit and the Strategic Change Management Office, as we work to develop policy recommendations in partnership with public and private sector, in order to contribute to meaningful implementation of the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint.
3. Data-driven citizen services and policymaking.
Technology has the ability to transform citizen services, increase productivity, reduce management costs, unlock insights from data, and create greater efficiency across government – this will require digital transformation across people, process, and technology.
To achieve this, public service, policymakers, and policymaking have to evolve in tandem with technology advancement. For example, to achieve the government's aim to enable cashless payments for all government services by 2022, we will need to transform systems and processes, train people, and shift mindsets.
The elimination of data silos would enable greater collaboration and coordination between government agencies and ministries. Shared intelligence across organizations, government entities and private institutions would enable data to be converted into actionable insights. This would improve the response time to pandemics, crises, and everyday issues in public service delivery.
The Malaysian Digital Economy Blueprint adopts a digital-native and cloud-first strategy as a means of enabling the digital transformation of the public sector. This includes 80 per cent usage of cloud storage across government by 2022.
Besides reducing costs and ensuring effective data collection and management, the use of cloud technology will allow Big Data, AI, IoT and other emerging technologies to be used to strengthen government services and public service delivery.
Malaysia has the opportunity to lead change for the region in cohesive policy making that ensures effective and resilient public services, with leading-edge technology, providing solutions to not only exit the pandemic, but also recover, build resilience, and increase competitiveness.
SOCIAL ECONOMIC RESEARCH INITIATIVE (SERI)
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times