Speech by MOS Alvin Tan at Municipal Services Awards 2025

Nov 17, 2025

A Decade of Service and Community

It is a pleasure to join you at the 10th anniversary of the Municipal Services Awards (MSA) to celebrate a decade of collaboration, care, and community.

I would like to appreciate our Town Councils and residents who have worked hard over these 10 years to make the neighbourhood that we call our home a special place where we live, work and play.

A Look Back – 2015 and The Early Years

Your efforts span more than a decade, but ten years (of the Awards) is a time for us to look back, reflect and look forward. In 2014, we formed the Municipal Services Office, bringing agencies together to serve residents better. We had also just launched the OneService App, offering residents a single touchpoint to report municipal issues. It was a time of experimentation and optimism. Residents still called hotlines or walked into Town Council offices. Now, you just go onto the LifeSG App. Neighbourhood Facebook groups were emerging then, and early smart-city pilots were taking root. Now we see more of these things happening organically.

Importantly, we created the Municipal Services Awards to recognise those who solved problems, and brought people together to do so.

Ten Years On – How Far We’ve Come

Fast forward to today, our municipal ecosystem has transformed. We have moved from reactive to more proactive partnerships, from resolving cases to co-creating communities, focusing on the upstream before the problems even occur. We have digital tools like the OneService App, Municipal Dashboard, and AI-enabled analytics, which can now help agencies detect issues early and coordinate faster.

But what truly drives progress isn’t technology, it’s people. They are the ones who listen, care, and collaborate to make shared spaces better. That is the OneService spirit and the WEFirst spirit we celebrate today.

Stories That Bring The Spirit To Life

Behind every award we celebrate today is a story. There are many stories to share and many people to acknowledge and recognise, but let me share a few.

In Boon Lay, the Heartland Kindness Mural brought residents, youth groups, the National Environment Agency, and the Town Council together to turn corridor clutter into community art.

In Ubi, agencies and Town Council officers worked with residents and businesses to tackle littering and pest issues, building long-term partnerships based on trust and respect.

We have individuals like Mr Andy Ang from Nee Soon Town Council, who supported a resident with mental health needs with patience and care, show that true service is about empathy as much as efficiency.

Each story is a quiet act of nation-building. One block, one neighbourhood, one conversation at a time.

Looking Ahead – The Next Decade of Community Action

New challenges will emerge, such as on sustainability, ageing estates, digital inclusion, and climate resilience. But as long as our foundations remain strong, and with collaboration and trust, we can solve whatever problems that lay before us.

MSO will continue to support residents and communities through initiatives like the Community Toolkit, developed with Temasek Polytechnic, to help residents design ground-up projects using behavioural insights. We will keep strengthening digital tools and data-sharing to resolve issues faster, but always with a human touch. While technology helps us work better, empathy helps us live better.

A Community That Cares Together

To our award recipients Andy, the teams behind the Heartland Kindness Mural, Project Ubi, and many others, thank you for showing what’s possible when we put community before self. Your stories remind us that Singapore’s progress isn’t built by what we say, but what we do.

Congratulations to all the award recipients, I look forward to joining you in celebrating all your contributions and achievements. Thank you.