Police Intelligence Department
By Ms Chen Jinglin

Navigators of the Force
FY 2007 saw the SPF winning the Singapore Quality Award with Special Commendation for organisational excellence. The Police Intelligence Department followed its lead and moved towards organisational excellence with initiatives to enhance its operational capabilities and staff development.

Change of Command

In June 2007, Deputy Director Police Intelligence Department (PID), Mr Hoong Wee Teck, took over from Mr Ng Joo Hee as Director, PID. Mr Ng led the Department from February 2005 to June 2007. The formal change of command ceremony took place on 21 June 2007, with Acting Commissioner of Police, Mr Goh Liang Kwang, as the Guest-of-Honour.

Expanding Capabilities

As part of the blueprint to combat transnational crime and foster strong bonds with regional agencies, we expanded our intelligence-liaison capabilities by stationing a police attaché in the Philippines in June 2007.

We also registered numerous successes in the fight against crime. Even as unlicensed money-lending syndicates become increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect, we managed to track and crack down on such syndicates with intelligenceled operations like ‘Ops Lexus’. Another operation, ‘Ops Kejam’, led to the capture of five suspects involved in a series of house robberies. These successes were due to extensive fieldwork, good coordination and swift enforcement action.

The 13th ASEAN Summit, hosted by Singapore and attended by over 2,000 delegates from 43 countries, was a major operation which saw PID carry out intelligence coverage and support of the event. The Summit was a success, thanks to our officers’ competence, commitment and dedication.

As part of our efforts to enhance operational capabilities, we acquired new skills to combat new and more sophisticated crime. We organised a symposium, themed ‘Policing Mega Casinos’, aimed at building the knowledge and networks for the exchange of vital information among intelligence agencies.

Guest speakers from experienced foreign law enforcement and gaming regulatory agencies also shared with us valuable insights on policing a country with a vibrant casino gaming industry.

People Make the Difference

The overall state of employee health in PID was demonstrated by the significant increase in favourable responses in all areas in the Organisational Health Survey (OHS) 2007, as compared to the OHS conducted in the previous year.

We also received awards for our operations and innovations. Three of our officers received the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) National Day Award while three Work Improvement Teams (WITS) received silver and bronze awards in SPF’s WITS Competition.

In 2007, MHA approved a formalised route of advancement (ROA) for Management Executive (MX) officers serving as Police Intelligence Analysts. Officers placed on this route would be managed as a specialist group within the wider Home Affairs Senior Executive (HASE) population. The ROA signifies a new chapter in PID’s human resource development. With this initiative, analysts could look forward to more professional training, specialist skills grading and a possible specialist career track.

Successfully Navigating FY 2008

PID will continue to serve as the ‘Navigator’ for SPF, with timely and quality intelligence work. With increasing demands placed on us, we will have to adapt and learn to cope with the untried, untested and unknown.

The coming years will see the opening of casinos and the challenging operational demands of large-scale events such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Conference. We will rise to these challenges by drawing lessons from past operational experiences as well as investing in and training our officers to bring out the best in them.