What can we learn about governance and public service leadership from Singapore?

Close to half the global population have headed to the polls in 2024. As governments have prepared for the highest voter turnout in history, their work has come under intense scrutiny. And as countries face increasingly complex challenges, their governments are under greater pressure to deliver solutions to their constituencies.

To help our government partners and policy leaders around the world with this endeavour, Nesta commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team to produce research on lessons from Singapore – one of the highest functioning bureaucracies in the world according to the World Bank1. To jump-start this research, we interviewed nine former and current Singaporean senior civil servants2. They included directors, deputy secretaries, permanent secretaries, chief executive officers, a former head of civil service, and a principal private secretary to the prime minister.

Between them, they have designed, implemented and managed key policies, such as Singapore’s pensions scheme, healthcare financing framework, public service transformation and economic development through foreign investment promotion.

We began each interview with the same question: What is the secret to Singapore’s success?

Three themes recurred throughout our conversations – vulnerability, pragmatism and a Whole-of-Government mindset. From these, we have teased out five ideas that we hope will generate debate on the ingredients necessary for an effective civil service. These ideas are not recommendations to be adopted wholesale, but provocations from seasoned bureaucrats who have spent their lives being very good at what they do – the business of government.

The five ideas in this report are as follows:

1. Engage with the possibility of failure: integrate disciplined premorteming into policymaking.
2. Formalise long-term scenario planning as a systematic practice of government.
3. Practise bold and ‘un-ideological’ policy borrowing.
4. Establish a public sector training institution that is funded and administered by the central government.
5. Nurture strong public sector leadership.