(Part One)
As part of its ongoing quality and innovation initiatives to ensure continuous efficiency and productivity in its performance, Sarawak State Treasury Department (JPNS) has been actively developing innovation projects and participated in innovation-related competitions for the past years.
Between 2017 and 2020, the department had successfully produced seven service delivery innovations and managed to win numerous accolades for their innovative ideas.
JPNS’s achievement in quality and innovation stems from their commitment to develop new creative and innovative ideas to transform Sarawak’s civil service delivery, which is not only in line with the State civil service’s vision of becoming “A World Class Civil Service”, but also in order to meet its own vision and mission.
To that end, the department has established a systematic framework and structure that has thus far allowed them to generate new and beneficial innovations consistently.
A Dedicated Quality and Innovation Committee
In its written response to RAKAN Sarawak, JPNS noted that its quality and innovation framework and structure is utilised through its very own Productivity Quality Steering Committee (JPKP).
It serves as the main committee that ensures continuous implementation of the department’s quality improvement and assurance. In its early stage, it was divided into two sections, namely:
- The Quality Improvement committee that oversaw aspects of quality improvement such as Innovative Creative Circle (ICC), Quality Environment (QE), Employee Suggestion Scheme (ESS), Key Focus Activity (KFA), Zero Bureaucracy and others that played a role in enhancing quality in JPNS; and
- The Quality Assurance committee that monitored committees under Quality Improvement which would meet on a quarterly basis to ensure that the quality journey is conducted smoothly and effectively.
The present structure of JPNS’s JPKP includes a committee dedicated to the department’s innovative endeavour. Called the Departmental Innovation Committee (JIJ), it is entrusted with the responsibility for:
- Organising strategies, managing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating innovation activities related with the creation and improvement of the department’s main functions and roles
- Preparing programmes and activities that cultivate innovation and creativity within the department
A Supportive Management Team
Each innovation project will undergo an exhaustive evaluation and monitoring process by JPNS’s management team.
In general, selected projects should be high impact in terms of improving the department’s strategic performance; generating opportunities for continuous improvement (based on the Kaizen concept); meeting the needs and satisfaction of the department’s stakeholders; and saving the department’s operating cost.
Additionally, the management team carry out detailed evaluation on group formation and member selection – which is based on the quality and ability of officers to produce high-impact innovation projects – as well as thorough monitoring on the progress of innovation projects.
Features of these projects, as described by JPNS, are as follow:
- The resulting innovations have increased the productivity of the department and the quality of service delivery to stakeholders comprising the public, civil servants, and responsibility centres (PTJ)
- They also have been used by all relevant PTJ throughout Sarawak
“The ongoing transformation implemented by the Sarawak State Treasury Department is comprehensive and encompasses the work culture of the Treasury staff.
“(Such effort) is based on saving resources such as cost and time as well as reducing work processes in the context of lean management to realise the department’s mission in supporting the vision of the Sarawak civil service,” stated the department.
