Launch of Household Services Scheme Pilot for Basic Child & Elder-Minding Services
From 15 March 2023, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will launch a two-year pilot programme to expand the scope of the Household Services Scheme (HSS) to include basic child-minding and elder-minding services. Companies on the HSS pilot will be able to hire more migrant workers to provide such services to households. This will primarily benefit families that require such domestic support for only a few hours a day or week and give them more options to meet their household needs.
2 MOM had called for proposals from commercial companies interested in participating in the pilot programme, and selected 25 companies based on their track record and relevant experience in home cleaning or care services. Households can engage these companies to provide basic minding services for children above 18 months old and elderly family members. Under the HSS, these companies are able to employ additional migrant workers to be deployed to perform part-time household services, including assisting children or elderly with simple personal care tasks. A list of companies selected for the pilot programme, and the full scope of services that can be provided by them, can be found in the Annex.
3 These HSS pilot companies must put in place safety measures before they can deploy workers to households. They must conduct an assessment of households’ care needs, and fully disclose their workers’ relevant experience and qualifications to households. In addition, HSS pilot companies must ensure that their workers providing elder-minding services have met the training requirements set by the Ministry of Health. HSS workers providing elder-minding services must attend training courses or undergo competency assessments if they do not have relevant qualifications. Households using the child or elder-minding services should ask the provider for the experience, qualification and training of the worker deployed and assess suitability of the worker for the care needs of the household.
4 “Currently, we already have around 140 HSS companies providing part-time household services to over 21,000 homes. With the expanded scope, selected HSS companies will have additional manpower to offer part-time basic caregiving services. This will give households more choices for respite care. We hope this will help Singaporeans better balance work and family commitments,” said Minister of State for Manpower, Ms Gan Siow Huang. “We will monitor the pilot programme, taking into consideration feedback from households and pilot companies, to assess its effectiveness and decide if further adjustments are needed.”