Rigidity

So if you are a PR, and you have a Singaporean son, and you are a single parent, alone in Singapore and you happen to be in dire straits (i.e. jobless and all...), there is really no way that you can find any form of assistance for yourself. BUT, there are loads of help available for your son. Now isn't that rather silly? Cos if you can't find a job, can't support yourself, then who is going to take care of your son? The state?

And there are certain gaps in the policies which people inevitably fall into. Because public policies are written on an assumption that society can be nicely partitioned into well ordered segments, either different income groups, different races, different ages, etc. But life isn't so orderly. A person in a certain income group, of a certain race, of a certain age, of a certain situation might just have an unfortunate mix that causes him/her to fall into a gap which is not covered by any public policy, any social assistance schemes. So this person would have to wait till he/she becomes more desperate, when his/her situation becomes more cham, and so fulfill the criteria of social assistance, before the State can intervene. Again, isn't this rather stupid? If we can nip the problem in the bud, prevent it from escalating, why not?

Alas, sometimes civil servants are so rigid in the interpretation of public policies. They go into the details of the policy, losing sight of the broader strategic intent of the policy, which essentially (in this context anyways) is to ensure that all Singaporeans who are willing to help themselves will receive help.