Disbursement of One-Off Adjustment to the Service and Conservancy Charges Operating Grant for 18 Town Councils

1. The Ministry of National Development (MND) currently disburses over $280 million annually in grants1 to support Town Councils’ operations such as the management and maintenance of the common areas in HDB housing estates. MND will be providing a one-off grant adjustment of $1.8 million to the Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) Operating Grant2 (“the grant”), spread across 18 Town Councils3.

2. The $1.8 million grant adjustment arose from a discrepancy in each year’s disbursement computation from Financial Year (FY) 2011 to FY2024, which resulted in a shortfall in the amounts disbursed to the affected Town Councils over that period.

3. The amounts vary across Town Councils, ranging from $22,000 to $383,000. In total, this shortfall constitutes about 0.09% of the grant that was disbursed by MND to the Town Councils over the 14-year period and would have had minimal impact on their operations.

4. The shortfall was discovered by the Housing & Development Board (HDB) during an internal review of the grant computation process. The grant amount for a given FY is computed using household data before the start of the FY. The grant quantum for each disbursement is then adjusted to account for changes in the number of households in the preceding year (e.g. newly-completed flats handed over to Town Councils). However, due to a system error from FY2011 to FY2024, a small number of HDB flats handed over to Town Councils in the month of March of the affected years were omitted from the computation. The discrepancy in a particular year is not carried over to the following year as the omitted flats are subsequently accounted for when the grant is next computed.

5. The discrepancy has since been rectified. To prevent recurrence, HDB has implemented more robust system checks, as well as validation and reconciliation controls as part of the grant computation process.

6. MND and HDB will complete the disbursement of the underpayments to the affected Town Councils, together with interest, by 31 January 2026.

Issued by: Ministry of National Development

Date: 29 December 2025

1 Grants given to Town Councils include the GST Subvention Grant, Lift Replacement Fund Matching Grant, S&CC Operating Grant and Lift Maintenance Grant.

2 The S&CC Operating Grant is an annual grant provided by MND to Town Councils to help with the costs of estate maintenance, meet their operating needs and reduce residents’ cost burden. The grant is disbursed annually for 4-room and smaller flats, with higher grants given for the smaller flat types.

3 The grant for Pasir Ris-Changi Town Council was not affected.