Posted by theonlinecitizen on February 28, 2012
~by: Leong Sze Hian~
I refer to the increase in funding to family service centres of about $100 million, over the next three years (“More family service centres, extra $30m funding in coming years”, (Straits Times, Feb 9).
This works out to an annual funding of about $33.3 million.
According to ComCare’s annual report for the financial year 2010 which ended on 31 March 2011, $61 million was disbursed to 20,300 needy families under various ComCare programmes.
The ComCare Endowment Fund has about $811 million, and Comcare disbursements was about $44, $48, $50, $66 and $61 million in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively, to about 21,000, 20,000, 25,000, 26,000 and 20,300 needy families, respectively.
Ratio of costs of disbursement to funding
If we include the funding to the five Community Development Councils and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, I estimate the total annual funding to deliver the ComCare schemes to be about $30 million.
How much are we spending a year to disburse the Comcare schemes?
Whilst it is always good to increase funding to organisations who administer the assistance to needy families under ComCare, we should also bear in mind the costs of delivery versus the assistance disbursed.
Need to review processes?
Should we review our processes to see if they are overly cumbersome, time-consuming or costly, in the disbursement of funds to people with needs?
Is spending $30 million to disburse $61 million to needy families an efficient ratio?
What are the benchmarks for other countries?
