Civil Servant Salary Data Flawed

The country comparative lowest & highest civil servant salary data presented in the article on Sun2Surf is flawed.

At least as far as the Singapore salaries are concerned. A top civil servant in Singapore earns much, much more than S$2442 per month. I won't be surprised if the top civil servant earns S$2442 each working day (ie. $600,000 per annum).

Typical CEO salaries of large listed Singapore companies are about a S$1 million per annum. And Singapore prides itself on a civil servant salary scale that is competitive with the private sector.

Have a look at the 2nd picture which is a screen capture of the Singapore Police Force (SPF) careers website. Entry level commissioned officers in the SPF ie. inspectors and above, already earn well above $2442 a month if they have NS (National Service) or if they have a good honours or higher degree.

Mr Lim Teck Ghee needs to look at his data again. I hope this does not reflect the rigour he put into his ASLI study that came up with the 46% bumi ownership of shares.



Update 25 March 2007

An interesting article in Today newspaper (below) about Singapore civil service salaries and how the top earners (superscale and above) are benchmarked against the top 8 individual salaries in each of 6 professions. Apparently top civil servants like senior parliamentary secretaries and ministers earn over a million a year (vindicating my earlier estimate of S$600,000 above).

What surprised me isn't the fact that a person in the first/lowest superscale rung (Superscale G or SR9) of Singapore's elite Administrative Service pulls in S$370,000 a year. It's the fact that it is the entry point for fast track civil servants aged from their early-mid 30's! Wow... that's a helluva fast track. Assuming they work another 20 years before an early retirement, they would have accumulated a nest egg of over S$7 million! (before tax). And that's if they never get promoted above SR9.

These civil salaries might sound exorbitant, but if you look at Singapore - with its approximately S$50 billion revenue and S$50 billion expenses & capital investment (source: http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/budget_2007/revenue_expenditure/toc.html) and the fact that the Administrative service constitutes only 0.43% of the total civil workforce or 270 individuals (2002. Source: http://www.jsscs.gov.hk/en/publications/pwc/appendix_d.htm) - it's really not so different from a normal MNC and it's corp of high-income senior managers and directors. But of course, we have not touched on the fact that the private sectors does not have a post-retirement pension and medical scheme. And the fact remains that the civil service has far more job-security than the private sector. A "cast iron rice bowl" (teet fan woon) if you will.

Followup blog: Paying the Piper: The great Singapore civil servant salary debate





Here's a handy table of civil service ranks and salary points:

Salary Points	Salary Ranges	Political Appointments
Staff Grade IV, V	MR1	Deputy Prime Minister/ Minister MR1
Staff Grade III	MR2	Minister MR2
Staff Grade II	MR3	Minister MR3
Staff Grade I	MR4	Minister MR4
Superscale B	SR5	Senior Minister of State
Superscale C	SR6	Minister of State
Superscale D	SR7	Senior Parliamentary Secretary
Superscale E	SR8	Parliamentary Secretary
Superscale G	SR9
Senior Principal Assistant Secretary*	R10
Principal Assistant Secretary	R11
Assistant Secretary	R12
Senior Administrative Assistant	R13
Administrative Assistant	R14