By WONG PEI TING
SINGAPORE — In a move described by industry players as “long overdue”, the National Environment Agency (NEA) will be leading a year-long “landscape study” to assess current standards, skills demands and manpower needs of the funeral services industry.
On June 2, NEA put up a tender on the Government’s procurement portal, GeBiz, for a consultancy firm to “profile” the industry, and the findings will be used to shape policies to develop the industry in the next 20 years.
The move came amid calls by funeral services operators, especially in the past year, to raise standards, following a string of events which thrust the industry into the spotlight, including a body mix-up that led to the cremation of a wrong body and an incident where a body of a woman was allegedly left uncovered.
In response to TODAY’s queries, the NEA said it has called the study as it is the lead planning agency for after-death facilities and services.
It added that the NEA will assess and share the key results of the study with the Association of Funeral Directors and funerary industry stakeholders when they are ready, so that they can “explore areas for collaboration” on initiatives for capability development and raising productivity.
Industry players told TODAY they welcome the study, noting that too little attention has been given to the industry over the past decade and it was about time that a government agency looked into improving the sector.
The Association of Funeral Directors (AFD) said it was glad to see the NEA taking the lead as the industry’s skills and training development is currently distant in the minds of government agencies or educational institutions, despite it providing a “very essential service”.
Agreeing, Mr Ang Ziqian, deputy chairman of the Ang Chin Moh Group of Companies, said findings of the study would hopefully “substantiate the drowned voices of funeral directors” and improve the funeral profession to serve Singapore better.
In January, TODAY’s Big Read reported on the concerns of the industry. Then, NEA had said in response to queries that it would review workflows at funeral parlours with embalming facilities and roll out guidelines to raise standards of the funerary services.
Among other things, funeral businesses have called for a formal course for funeral directors and decried the low barriers to entry.
THE STUDY’S FOCUS
Based on the tender documents, NEA will be getting the consultant to look into countries that regulate and do not regulate the role of funeral directors and establish the rationale for why they take the different approaches.
The study will span all of the industry’s sub-sectors, including funeral parlour operators, embalmers, hearse operators, columbaria operators, niche installation contractors and exhumation contractors.
It will identify skill gaps by gauging employers’ desired education requirements against the qualifications of the people whom they currently hire.
It will also identify “quality jobs”, as well as jobs less preferred by Singaporeans. Quality jobs refer to old and potential new roles that would offer competitive remuneration packages and good career and wage progression.
After identifying these roles, the study will look at projecting the potential sources of labour that can fill them. The examples given are mid-career switchers, mature workers and women returning to the workforce.
There will also be a benchmarking of the standards and guidelines of after-death trades in Singapore with best practices in other countries.
The tender documents said these steps would go towards ensuring that the death care industry has a “ready pool of competent service workers”, given that the country’s annual deaths are projected to double from 20,017 in 2016 to 40,000 by 2040 due to its ageing population.
The appointed consultant will work with NEA to determine a list of government and industry representatives who are “critical to the study”.
Adding that the study should cover land use and building facilities for funeral providers, Mr Ang said that the Singapore Land Authority, Urban Redevelopment Agency, the Housing and Development Board and JTC Corporation should be involved as well.
Noting that funeral service providers are given “very small areas” in industrial estates, he said: “Grieving families must pass through areas littered with broken crates, run-down vehicles and huge dumpsters to bid farewell to their dearly departed. This is terrible. Why can’t funeral service halls be located in a corner of a park within the community?”
Mr Chen Jiaxi, 34, who left the industry last year, said the lack of career progression or development in the industry, and poor remuneration of its staff, should be addressed urgently.
The former acting operations manager at Ang Chin Moh Funeral Directors also stressed the need for licensing.
Currently, there are more than 800 businesses providing funeral and related services, based on industry estimates.
“Can anybody who wants to be a real estate agent be one? No. Same goes for insurance agents... Clearly, they have some form of barrier of entry, but the funeral industry has none of that,” said Mr Chen.
Mr Nicky Teo, chief executive officer of Singapore Funeral Company, said the study should look into how the industry is dominated by family-run businesses. This meant that not everyone is given a “fair chance” to move up the ladder, said the 31-year-old.
