Ministerial salary review to exclude MP assistants' allowances; no timeline for report

The allowances paid to MPs' legislative and secretarial assistants — unchanged since 2007 — will not be examined by the committee currently reviewing political office holders' salaries, Minister for Education and Minister-in-Charge of the Public Service Chan Chun Sing confirmed in a written reply to Parliament on 3 March 2026, responding on behalf of Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong.

The clarification came in response to a question filed by Workers' Party MP for Sengkang GRC Associate Professor Jamus Jerome Lim, who asked whether the 2026 review would solicit public and Parliamentary feedback as the 2011 committee had done, and whether the remit would extend to the long-stagnant support allowances for MPs' hired staff.

Mr Chan was unequivocal on the latter point: the review of MPs' assistant allowances "falls outside the scope of the framework" being examined by the 2026 Committee, with no indication given of when or whether a separate process might address the matter.

On the broader question of public engagement, Mr Chan drew a clear distinction between the current exercise and the more expansive reviews of years past.

"The 2012 Committee undertook a fundamental review of the political office holders' salary framework, which included an extensive public feedback exercise at the time," he noted, adding that a subsequent committee in 2017 reaffirmed the framework and found it remained sound.

The 2026 Committee's mandate is comparatively narrow — to recommend appropriate salary levels within the existing framework and, "where necessary, to propose refinements so that the implementation of the framework will remain relevant and able to meet its intended purpose."

Assoc Prof Lim had specifically asked whether the committee would solicit feedback from the public and Members of Parliament, as the 2011 committee had done.

The Minister did not directly answer that question. Mr Chan said only that the committee "will consider information from a variety of sources to inform their deliberations," without specifying whether any formal mechanism for public or Parliamentary submissions would be established.

The Minister did not provide a timeline for when the committee's report would be submitted. He stated only that the work remained ongoing and that the Government would update Parliament after considering the committee's findings once received.

The exclusion of MPs' support staff allowances from the review's scope is likely to draw scrutiny, given that the issue has been raised publicly in recent years.

In May 2023, then-Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) tabled an adjournment motion arguing that the $1,300 monthly allowance for a legislative assistant and $500 for a secretarial assistant were "completely insufficient to hire even one full-time assistant."

Mr Leong had also noted that NCMPs had their support allowance stripped entirely in 1997 on the basis that their duties were lighter, even though NCMPs today hold full voting rights equal to elected MPs and sit on parliamentary committees.

Leader of the House Indranee Rajah rejected those proposals at the time, arguing that current parliamentary rules "afford more than enough opportunity for MPs" to hold the Government to account and that the constraint lay in how MPs deployed existing resources, not the quantum of those resources.

Assoc Prof Lim's question returns the spotlight to the same unresolved gap, this time in the context of a formal salary review — and the Government's answer is that the matter will again go unaddressed through this process.

The 2026 Committee was formally announced on 12 January 2026, when Mr Chan replied to a question from People's Action Party MP Alex Yam of Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.

The committee is chaired by Gan Seow Kee, chairman of Singapore LNG Corporation and an alternate member of the Council of Presidential Advisers, and draws its membership from the public, private and people sectors. 

Its formation followed a deferral of the scheduled five-year review in 2023, when the Government cited an "uncertain external environment and downside risks in the global economy" as justification for the delay.

 That deferral had itself attracted Parliamentary attention: in January 2023, then-NCMP Hazel Poa asked whether a review committee had been appointed, and Mr Chan responded at the time only that the Government would revisit the matter without committing to a timeline.

The current salary framework was established following the 2012 independent committee review, which benchmarked the entry-level ministerial salary — the MR4 grade — to the median income of the top 1,000 Singaporean earners, with a 40 per cent discount applied to reflect the ethos of public service.

That review, chaired by Gerald Ee, came in the wake of the 2011 General Election, during which the People's Action Party recorded its lowest share of valid votes in its history, with public discontent over ministerial pay widely cited as a contributing factor.

The 2017 committee found the framework sound but the Government ultimately declined to adjust salaries at that time, with then-Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean stating that "the economy is still in transition" and that the Government would "maintain the current salary structure and level."

Whether the 2026 review will result in any upward adjustment — and how the Government manages the political optics of that outcome ahead of an anticipated general election — remains to be seen once the committee submits its report.