The Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) takes the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO)’s findings seriously. We accept the recommendations made by AGO and have commenced detailed examination of the cases and started taking appropriate actions, including grant recovery where warranted. We have also taken steps to strengthen our grant administration, improve oversight and monitoring, and enhance governance of partners and IT systems and controls.

On observations related to then-SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG), AGO found that some non-Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) were misclassified in the administration of the Enhanced Training Support for SMEs (ETSS). Majority of these were due to a system logic error. We have initiated a review and will take appropriate action against the party responsible for the error. We have also immediately resolved the misclassification issues due to the use of incorrect and outdated financial data. SWDA will honour the ETSS grants disbursed under the affected cases, as the funds were used to support bona fide employee training and benefitted local workers.

AGO also identified 15 trainees who attended a high number of self-sponsored courses conducted by two training providers, which were their employers, raising concerns that the training providers might have been attempting to boost the attendance rate of their courses to claim more course fee funding. While the funding policy allows self-sponsored trainees to attend courses conducted by their employers or related companies, we have in place control measures such as requiring co-payment of course fees and disallowing TPs to pay net fees for their own courses, to ensure that such training is bona fide. SWDA has commenced a detailed review into these cases.

On observations related to then-Workforce Singapore (WSG), AGO noted the risks of potential gaming under the Career Conversion Programme (CCP) and the Mid-Career Pathways Programme (MCPP). One finding related to instances of sequential trainings of MCPP and CCP. Our initial reviews have ascertained that most of these cases met the programme requirements, and the sequential trainings were required to support job role conversions. We aim to complete the review of all cases by November 2026. We have identified one case that did not meet the programme intent and have initiated grant recovery as well as referred the case to the Police. Since January 2025, we have implemented additional checks on newly onboarded MCPP and CCP trainees to detect any overlaps. We are also exploring how to integrate post-application data analysis capabilities into the system to better identify higher-risk cases.

AGO observed the risk of potential gaming with entities which did not make any CPF contributions, raising the question whether the participating company had any local employees to train the programme participants. Further, AGO observed that there were companies with a high number of trainees relative to local employees, which called into question the quality of training provided by the company. SWDA notes that while employment size is not a requirement of these programmes, measures are in place to deter gaming. These include verification against business records. We are reviewing the cases and have verified that many of the companies are bona fide. They were either tagged erroneously in the system or part of a larger holding company (e.g. Public Healthcare Institutions) which handles payroll and CPF centrally. These cases accounted for more than half of the disbursed grant value highlighted by AGO. We will complete the review of remaining cases by May 2027. If breaches are found, we will take firm action.

AGO observed that grants were disbursed to CCP and MCPP trainees who were related to participating companies or related entities. Then-WSG had relied on self-declarations from the participating companies on related parties. We are reviewing the cases and will recover the grants where warranted, having done so for 21 cases to- date. We target to complete the review of remaining cases by December 2026. Since January 2025, then-WSG had implemented automated checks on applications to detect related parties and surface false declarations. This has allowed us to identify and rescind the approvals of close to 20 ineligible participants. SWDA will recover any incorrectly disbursed grants and take firm action on falsification of information, including referral to the Police.

Over the years, SSG and WSG have strengthened internal processes and compliance measures to improve the monitoring of programme performance, administration of funding agreements and grant disbursements, as well as the management of IT systems. We have also adopted the use of technology to monitor and detect anomalous claims. We will further improve on the areas identified by AGO’s findings.

The merger of SSG and WSG to form SWDA will build on the good practices of the two agencies to further strengthen governance, enhance processes and strengthen organisational capabilities. SWDA will continue to review, improve and strengthen internal controls, programme administration processes and systems to ensure good governance over the administration of public funds while maintaining effective delivery of services.

To safeguard the integrity of the training and workforce development system while avoiding an overly onerous monitoring regime for grant recipients, we seek the support of individuals and companies to report any practices or behaviours that may erode trust in our system.