Home Team colleagues,
Chairmen of Home Team Boards,
Councils and Committees,
Home Team volunteers and alumni,
1. Very good morning to every one of you. We celebrate our second Home Team Day today.
2. We started on this Home Team Day celebration to further strengthen and commemorate the One Home Team concept. To have an event for all our HT officers to try and focus on the idea of One Home Team, and to really bring across a very simple point that no Home Team Department can keep Singapore working on its own.
3. The combined Home Team is far greater than the sum of its parts.
4. We have been working on this concept for the last 28 years. And over the 28 years, our initial difficulties – people have, for decades, been used to working in a different way. We have tried to bring them together, overcame the initial differences of viewpoints, and the result is that we have a much stronger Home Team today.
5. The hard work over 28 years, working closer and closer, and since 2017- 2018, we have started integrating much more. And the results show this.
Achievements
6. In 2024 last year, Gallup ranked Singapore second in the world for Law and Order.
7. We were also ranked second by the World Justice Project for Order and Security.
8. Surveys with ordinary people of Singapore, show that 92% of Singaporean public trust the Home Team to carry out our duties professionally, fairly, and with integrity.
9. And 94% took a favourable view of your ability to keep Singapore safe and secure.
10. That really shows the progress we have made towards a vision that Home Team has: “A Trusted Home Team, A Safe and Secure Singapore”. That’s our vision and the people believe it in overwhelming numbers. They believe it because that’s their lived reality.
11. These are the results of the hard work and competence of our Home Team officers.
12. The frontline officers do tremendous, extremely important job. They are the public face of the Home Team.
13. But equally, behind the scenes, there are many other Home Team officers working very hard too.
14. For example, if you take the two years – 2024 and the two months in 2025, effectively we are talking about 14 months. We have introduced nine new pieces of legislation, most of them major and very significant. A lot of work goes in. First of all, thinking about them, conceptualising, then the policies have to be put together. They have to be coordinated with other legislation. Then comes the drafting and getting it into Parliament, and taking it through Parliament. Without this legal framework, we can’t do our jobs. We are continuously putting in place frameworks that helps you do your job better, gives you the powers to do your jobs, and protects you when you do your jobs. And without this legal framework, we can’t move. So that’s vital. The legislation dealt with a wide range of issues: harmony within the community, racial and religious harmony, road safety, money laundering, cybercrime, scams and more.
15. We have also, as I have frequently said, deployed technology to improve the systems and tools that our frontline officers use. That’s one part.
16. And we have to get a public that buys into this and is also educated in our approaches. So that you reduce crime, you increase alertness, and you create a much better society. We spent a lot of effort on public education – to educate the public on a variety of issues: drugs, scams, road safety, and much more.
17. In this context, I would also like to recognise the contributions of our alumni and volunteers to our safety and security.
18. You are an important part of the Home Team.
19. Our strong alumni and volunteer network really multiplies the reach and the work of the Home Team departments and the impact that the Home Team has in the community.
20. One example last year, in November, many of you remember the stabbing attack of a priest in St Joseph’s church. It was a retired police officer who went in to disarm the attacker. The Police simply cannot be everywhere. Neither can the Singapore Civil Defence Force, neither can our other Home Team departments. We will try to get them on the scene quickly. But if we can have people – ordinary people, retired police officers, volunteers – trained and ready to offer assistance, be it a medical emergency or an attack like what we saw in St Joseph’s church, then it makes the society that much safer. It helps the Home Team’s reach multiply.
21. Our Home Team volunteers work alongside our regular officers. They patrol neighbourhoods, they provide emergency medical services.
22. Our volunteers also serve as mentors and teachers to ex-offenders. They strengthen our efforts to reintegrate ex-offenders back into our community. And that, in turn, when it is successfully done, reduces the recidivism rate, creates a better life for the person and his or her family.
23. These examples I have shared show what the Home Team stands for.
24. The members of our Home Team Boards, Councils and Committees all do invaluable work to keep Singapore safe and secure.
25. You help amplify the key messages to the community on crime prevention, public safety, crisis preparedness and much more.
26. You also offer advice and expertise to our Home Team Departments in various domains. And these strong partnerships have made it possible for the Home Team to achieve what we have today.
Building on a Strong Foundation
27. Since the launch of the Home Team concept, we have been articulating a shared vision, mission, and values to our officers.
28. We have been attempting to inculcate that culture into every one of our officers and over the years, step by step, we have developed now, a full calendar of joint training courses, joint exercises, as well as social activities that cut across departments, bringing different people together from different departments, like the Home Team Games and SPRIGHT games – some of which took place today.
29. These touchpoints coming together across Home Team departments, allow officers across the Home Team to come together to learn, to work, and to play.
30. Last year, we published the Home Team Culture Guide.
31. It articulates our shared values and desired behaviours to help our officers, especially the newer officers, to understand what it means to be a member of the Home Team.
32. Today, we will launch the Home Team Pledge.
33. The Pledge signifies our commitment to the culture we want to see in the Home Team.
34. It emphasises our shared values of Honour and Unity, our promise to work together as one, and our determination to keep Singapore safe and secure.
Conclusion
35. Let us continue on this journey to work together as a team to keep Singapore safe and secure, and maintain the very high trust and confidence that Singaporeans have in the Home Team.
36. I wish everyone a very happy Home Team Day.
37. Thank you.
