Every time you write a letter to a government department, you always get an irrelevant reply? Official documents are too abstruse and not many people can understand them? Replies from government departments sound like preaching and always do not answer your queries directly?

Some members of the public feel that government departments lack warmth and that when they try to explain a policy to the public, they always give one the feeling that they are divorced from the people. This may be a misperception. But it could be a problem that really exists. In any case, civil servants are not taking the matter lightly and want to learn anew the art of communication so that they can explain national policies better.

Inviting experts to give lectures to civil servants

About six months ago, MITA began planning for the setting up of a Public Relations Academy (PR Academy) to enhance civil servants' communication skills. The Academy has begun to conduct courses. Recently, it invited Mr Michael Sheehan - a guru who has coached the US President, Vice-President and CEOs of many multi-national companies - to give a talk to senior and other civil servants on how to explain more effectively complex national policies to the people.

PR Academy's managing director, Ms Veni Pasupathi, told this reporter in a recent interview that the public are now better educated and more knowledgeable and have many ways of obtaining information. Therefore, they have higher expectations. Besides, people are busy nowadays and spend less time on reading each piece of information. How to capture their attention has become a subject of learning.

Said Ms Veni: "What we want to nurture ultimately are civil servants who are able to understand the mindsets of the public and the media, who have mastered the skills of communication, who are aware of the needs of the public and customers and who are able to respond more promptly."

Policy-makers may have a good grasp of policies but they always forget to view problems from the perspective of the man in the street. Therefore, they may think that they have already answered the public's query, but the public may not have got a satisfactory reply.

Ms Veni felt that there is room for civil servants to improve, be it in giving face-to-face service, providing telephone service or in the skills in giving written replies to queries from the public.

Courses conducted by the PR Academy include negotiation skills, skills in drafting replies and press releases and communication skills. The Academy also teaches civil servants how to convey accurate and timely information during a crisis.

Ms Veni said that the aim of the PR Academy is to conduct high-quality courses and that its local and foreign trainers are well-known experts who are carefully selected. Some PSs, DSs and CEOs have attended its courses. But trainees do not come from the public sector alone. Private-sector staff are sometimes invited as well.

Ms Veni revealed that the PR Academy will not just organise courses. It is looking into compiling its own teaching materials to meet the needs of civil servants. She does not rule out the possibility of the PR Academy breaking away from MITA to operate independently in future when circumstances permit. In the long run, she hopes the Academy will be able to award its own certificates.

During this reporter's visit, the PR Academy was conducting a workshop on negotiation skills. The lecturer asked the participants to raise a stick together and adjust its height according to instructions. It is a job that can be easily performed if done by one person. But if it is performed by a group of people, they will need some negotiation.

Mr Chua Loo Lin (29), Head of Media Relations,Ministry of Law, said that it never occurred to him that civil servants would need to learn negotiation skills as he had thought that government departments had more "bargaining chips" when it came to negotiations. But he realised that to achieve satisfactory results, negotiations were necessary.

Mr Tan Yew Soon (47), Head of the Feedback Unit, felt that with their higher expectations, the public would no longer accept civil servants' explanation of a certain policy wholesale. Therefore, civil servants needed to improve the way they communicated with the public.

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