INDUSTRIAL SAFETY IN SINGAPORE : A CASE STUDY IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Abstract

This academic exercise is primarily concerned with exploring the different approaches to securing compliance to safety and health standards for industries laid down in government legislation. There are two main approaches which are examined. First, there is the traditional enforcement approach which uses coercion and penalties to ensure that owners and managers maintain good standards of health and safety in factories, construction sites and shipyards. Secondly, there is the compliance approach which uses, in addition to enforcement, other strategies to ensure that owners and managers maintain high standards of health and safety. These strategies include education, persuasion, incentives and self-regulation. Also part of this approach is the use of discretion in applying the laws. At present there has been little research done on this topic. The only previous research done on the Department of Industrial Safety appears in Daniel Tan Guan Kok's 1983/84 Academic Exercise entitled, "The Singapore Civil Service: A Study of Specialist Administrators in Two Ministries". However, he only discussed the Department of Industrial Safety in brief. Therefore, a more in-depth study would be relevant to increase our corpus of knowledge on enforcement approaches with regards to a particular government agency. The research for this academic exercise is based on interviews with various staff from the Department of Industrial Safety (DIS), observational studies of inspections and · primary resources such as annual reports of the Department, Ministry of Labour annual reports and various other government publications. I have also consulted secondary sources to increase my understanding of the workings of law enforcement and the different approaches which can be adopted. Chapter one gives the reader background information on the enforcement agency and the laws, regulation and rules which are enforced. Chapter two deals with the process of inspection and enforcement and how discretion is exercised by inspectors, rules and practices of the agency and the exercise of discretion in the case of enforcement of laws. Chapter three is concerned with strategies other than law enforcement which are used by the Department to ensure compliance. These strategies are mentioned above. Chapter four consolidates the information of the first three chapters and considers how the Department utilizes the two approaches stated above.