Singapore enhances back office shared services

Vital, the Singapore Government’s shared services agency, has formed a new operations unit to provide back-office corporate services, including payroll, claims, and training services to the National Environmental Agency.
Vital will be providing services to the government agencies that are using the Alliance for Corporate Excellence (ACE) system, a shared HR and Finance IT system which was also used by 11 government agencies in the country from 2010. These services will be delivered more efficiently by Vital using the shared platform. NEA has, early this month, started using the ACE system and Vital said three more agencies will proceed to use the system this year.
Prior to this, Vital has already been centrally carrying out finance, HR, payroll, claims, training and travel functions for over 100 Government agencies using multiple government systems.
Vital.org Chief Clarence Ti told FutureGov Asia Pacific that having groups of statutory boards on a common system come together and be supported by Vital, reduces costs and promotes data-sharing within the whole of Government. This will translate to a more efficient public sector in Singapore.
Having common IT systems will help Government agencies speak on the same platform and make processes seamless and more cost-effective. The ACE project first completed in April 2010 for 11 Statutory Boards, consolidates the different administration systems from the Statutory Boards into a single shared ERP IT platform,” he added. On plans ahead, Ti said that the NEA serves as the anchor for Vital to further aggregate the common corporate services by government statutory boards on ACE in order to achieve economies of scale and better cost efficiency. Vital will be partnering with SAP in rolling out the back-office corporate services.
SAP Singapore Managing Director, Mr Kowshik Sriman said, “Shared services arrangements require significant emphasis in IT infrastructure, skills acquisition and training.” NEA’s Deputy Director of HR Management, Sim Li Ling said the new ACE platform is designed to help NEA to meet core business needs andreach real-time business processes – connecting our employees, partners, and customers.

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