Government ICT spending to increase to S$3.8b in FY2021; 83% of contracts open to SMEs

AS government spending on info-communications technology (ICT) procurement increases to an estimated S$3.8 billion this year, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore will be able to participate in 83 per cent of the potential opportunities, the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) announced on Wednesday.

ICT contracts will be made available to SMEs through streamlined procurement efforts, which will improve SMEs' access to government ICT procurement opportunities, the agency said in a press statement.

The government has incorporated dynamic contracting in bulk tenders, for example, to allow new suppliers and requirements to be introduced throughout a contract period.

GovTech added that as more cloud-based services and smaller system projects are put out, barriers of entry for SMEs are lowered as they allow suppliers with a lower financial grading to bid.

This year's spending marks an almost 10 per cent increase from the previous year's, and the bulk of it - about S$2.7 billion, will go towards re-engineering digital government infrastructure and transforming government digital services.

Two hundred and fifty projects to transform, integrate and streamline services used by citizens and businesses will be carried out.

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Forty-four per cent of the S$2.7 billion is planned for cloud developments in FY2021, such as the State Courts' system which manages case filing, payments, document submission and case developments.

GovTech said that by developing these applications on the cloud, it is able to increase agility and innovation, as well as resiliency and scalability. This means it will be able to achieve faster delivery of new public services and better performance when demand is high.

The government is on track to have 70 per cent of eligible systems on the cloud by FY2023, with close to 600 systems on the cloud now, it added.

Another example of a project that will be transformed is the GoBusiness platform, which will be expanded to be a go-to platform for business-to-government interactions and will provide personalised assistance for business.

The platform has helped an average of 150 food and beverage establishments register for business licenses each month, with a faster turnaround time. (see Amendment note)

Other services will see updates and improvements, while new projects will also be supported by the funding.

In addition, over S$500 million will be spent to accelerate the adoption and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), which will promote data-driven decision making and operations optimisation to increase productivity, GovTech said.

To reduce government agencies' costs for onboarding AI solutions and support AI deployment, GovTech has built central platforms to support common use cases in video analytics, natural language processing, fraud analytics and personalisation. These platforms also enable access to common features and lower cost of management, maintenance and updating of systems.

A customised AI-Automated Marking System, developed by the Ministry of Education, is an example of a high-impact AI project. It is a longer-term solution for upper primary and secondary students to track their English language writing and receive quick, personalised and actionable feedback, with teachers also able to monitor their progress.

Citizen and business satisfaction with government digital services remained high, with 85 per cent and 76 per cent of respondents respectively indicating that they were very or extremely satisfied in the G2C (government-to-citizens) and G2B (government-to-business) surveys conducted in 2020.

Covid-19-focused digital solutions were also well-regarded, with 97 per cent of the citizen respondents indicating that their delivery was timely and 98 per cent agreeing that they played a key role in the fight against Covid-19.

Of business respondents, 94 per cent indicated that the digital solutions by the government have provided timely and accurate information to help businesses cope with the pandemic.

More details on the government's key digitalisation focuses and areas of projected spending will be shared through an online content series to be rolled out and a LinkedIn Live chat to be held on June 30, GovTech said.

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Amendment note: An earlier version of this article stated that the trade and industry ministry's GoBusiness platform has helped more than 150 food and beverage establishments register for business licences so far. GovTech has since clarified that the platform has helped 150 F&B establishments each month, on average. The article above has been revised to reflect this.