ICA CIO Tan Sor Hoon
The huge number of people coming into the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority’s (ICA) Visitor Services Centre (VSC) has always been problematic for the staff working there, according to Doris Tang, deployment officer, ICA. The rise in applications at the VSC saw an 89-per cent jump from 280,000 applications in 2003 to 530,000 applications in 2007.
Her colleagues spent a great deal of time handling complaints from the public due to the long waiting times and security officers had to be deployed to manage the crowd. ICA estimated that the issuance of a long-term Social Visit Pass takes an hour to be completed.
ICA is the single command responsible for the security of Singapore’s checkpoints against the entry of undesirable persons and cargo. ICA also performs other immigration and registration functions such as issuing of various types of immigration passes and permits to foreigners.
Strain on Resources
Besides facing the challenges of rising visitor numbers and strain on staff resources, ICA realised it was spending large amounts of money. The agency calculated that the costs of hiring security personnel, handing out overtime pay for staff members and utility bills incurred amounted to SG$450,000 per year.
To cope with the ever-increasing number of visitors, ICA embarked on a project to move the services online. The e-Visitor Programme was set-up to allow foreigners to apply for a wide range of immigration facilities such as extension of stay, application of visa, long-term visit pass or student pass.
ICA’s e-visitor programme consists of a spectrum of e-services with streamlined processes to make it more convenient for foreigners to visit and stay in Singapore.
A visitor can access the portal even before he or she arrive in Singapore. Entering SAVE (Submission of Application for Visa Electronically), an online visa application portal, allows a visa required national to apply for an entry visa via the Internet. One can easily print the visa from home without the need for the local sponsor to courier the physical visa stickers to the applicants.
Once the visitor arrives in Singapore, extension of visit pass can be swiftly applied using the e-XTEND (Electronic Extension of Short Term Visit Pass) system without the visitor having to make a trip down to ICA. A unique feature of the e-XTEND system is that no physical endorsements are required to be made into the passport. This move from physical to a virtual electronic endorsement challenges the conventional accepted norm that endorsements had to be in the form of a physical stamp in the passport, describes ICA CIO Tan Sor Hoon.
The programme also caters to visitors that are seeking to stay long term, with e-VP (Online application for long term Visit Pass) and SOLAR/SOLAR+ (Student’s Pass Online Application and Registration).
These services are fully-integrated with ICA’s online appointment system where a pre-allocated appointment is given to successful applicants to minimise their waiting time.
Change for the better
The e-Visitor Programme involved radical ideas entailing a paradigm shift where top management endorsement was obtained and challenged the tried & tested ways of doing things, says Tan.
In addition, about 730 global and 70 local trusted partners were involved. These included travel agents from countries like China and India, healthcare service providers, economic agencies, airlines, shipping agents and SingPost outlets.
ICA conducted focus groups for these companies to unveil what its vision, and then “we presented to them the tangibles and intangibles,” says Tan. Admittedly the plan entails having these partners to enter visitors’ particulars in their application forms.
“Getting the trusted partners to enter the details for us, in a way it helps the IT department as it does not have to clean the information, and it helps the public too, because they usually do not know how to enter the information,” she adds.
However, once the benefits to the partners – faster processing times for visa applications and customer satisfaction – her agency was able to win acceptance from these partners quickly.
The next step for ICA was to put out intensive training for partners to prepare them of the change in the work processes, says Tan. A train-the-trainer approach was adopted. “First, a group of officers together with our trusted partners were trained. This group of officers were then trained the rest of the officers. This approach was to ensure that all staff involved was adequately trained,” she adds. Travel agents located overseas like China and India were not left out. The agency sent its staff to these firms to train the personnel over there.
Regular dialogues and feedback gathering sessions were held to address concerns and to further fine-tune the programme. An example is the development of the SOLAR/SOLAR+ component, where ICA engaged private educational organisations (PEOs) in interview sessions. The design of the system was presented and explained to them. Subsequently, their wish lists were collated and filtered. Only those from important must-haves were accepted after taking into account the cost effectiveness. The system was soft-launched to a few PEOs initially, before an assessment was done. After fine-tuning, the system was extended to the rest of the PEOs.
“For some of the processes, it may be a branch code to us that we put in two processes. To the trusted partners, they may highlight that it is not necessary, so as to help us to reduce the processing time,” says Tan.
Regular correspondences were also sent to trusted partners and relevant external agencies to keep them updated of any fine-tuning and to provide them with useful information in using the e-Visitor programme.
The ICA considers the development of the e-XTEND module as one of the more radical components of the e-Visitor programme. It challenges the conventional wisdom that passports must be physically endorsed by immigration officers, says Tan.
Before the implementation of the e-Visitor Programme, ICA relied on face-to-face appearance of customer, the checking of the physical passports and supporting documents to assess an application. However, with the introduction of the e-Visitor programme, ICA would have to conduct verification and profiling through its database and online declaration by the customers.
The officers at ICA previously stamp an endorsement into passports. External government agencies such as the Singapore Police Force have also relied on the physical endorsement in passports to ascertain that a visitor’s stay in Singapore is valid. Other parties such as hotels and airlines also relied on these physical endorsements to verify immigration status.
Double Trouble
For visitors who come down to ICA in person, applications were made by filling up hardcopy application forms and over-the-counter services to electronic filing of applications and electronic endorsements. They would have to make at least two trips to ICA for any application; the first trip would be for submitting the application, and the second trip for getting the endorsements stamped onto their travel documents.
To ensure that the e-Visitor Programme set off on the correct legal track without posing problems in administering immigration laws, legal advice was sought and proper clearance was given. Legal advice was sought from the Attorney-General’s Chambers on the legality of “electronic endorsements” where in the past, the endorsements were physical stamps made into the passport.
“The key success factor behind e-XTEND was user acceptance. Once the parties realise the benefits of the system, they are more willing to work together towards a common goal,” describes Tan. For example, all the enforcement agencies were notified of the superiority of integrity in database, as compared to physical endorsements in passports which can be easily forged, and the ease of use with the web-based system to make quick online enquiries on the immigration status of visitors.
To further ensure a smooth transition in implementing the e-Visitor Programme, ICA adopted a phased approach. Pilot phases were conducted for a selected group of customers before rolling out to other groups. For example, the e-XTEND system was first implemented for a smaller group of customers who are nationals of non visa-required countries before it was extended gradually to visa-required nationals and foreign family members who require a longer stay in Singapore. Upon implementation, grace periods were also provided for the parties to familiarise themselves.
Convenience and cost
The e-Visitor Programme has drastically reduced the crowd at ICA, the number of visits made to ICA was reduced by an average of 1,500 visits per day or 390,000 visits per year. As a result of this and the electronic appointment booking system, the waiting times of customers have been improved. For example, the waiting time to complete formalities for the issuance of a long-term Social Visit Pass dropped from 60 minutes to 10 minutes.
“We were able to achieve our key performance indicators for most of the time as compared to the past where we always failed. With a faster turnaround time, we were able to re-deploy about 15 per cent of our total staff to handle higher risk cases and contribute to value-added work,” says Tan.
For example, ICA has been able to devote more resources to conduct in-depth screening of dubious applicants and this saw an increase of up to 40 per cent in the detection of such cases.
The e-Visitor programme has helped ICA achieve a cost avoidance of SG$370,000 per year arising from not having to rent additional physical counters to cater crowds, infrastructure cost avoidance of SG$100,000 per year and manpower cost avoidance of SG$300,000 per year to achieve the same level of service provided to the members of public.
Arising from the elimination of the need for security guards to manage the crowd and reduced overtime payment to staff, which costs SG$350,000, and reduced use of electricity, worth SG$100,000, to keep the services centre open to members of public, the e-Visitor Programme had helped to save another SG$450,000 per year.
Tang realises that with the e-Visitor programme, there was a noticeable reduction in the crowd coming to VSC. This also led to shorter waiting times for the public. This led to fewer complaints as the public was generally more satisfied with the improved and speedy services. Staff's morale has also been bolstered resulting in a positive effect of service delivery, she concludes.
