SINGAPORE – All town councils received top ratings for estate management in their last performance review done before the 2025 general election.

The 17 town councils had green ratings across four categories of assessment in the latest town council management report released by the Ministry of National Development (MND) on June 13.

This operational report covered the 2024 financial year from April 2024 to March 2025. The general election was held on May 3.

The town councils continued to uphold their top marks from the last report for FY2023, where they all received the green ratings – the first time since the reports were issued in 2010.

Green is the highest rating, followed by amber and red. The four areas for assessment are estate cleanliness, estate maintenance, lift performance and service and conservancy charges arrears management.

To get a green rating for estate cleanliness or maintenance, a town council must have fewer than four counts of specific issues observed per block. 

For cleanliness, the issues include the presence of stain, litter, bulky refuse and graffiti. The top issue for cleanliness across the town councils continued to be stain and litter, similar to the previous report.

For estate maintenance, obstruction of common areas also continued to be the main issue.

Other observations included unauthorised fixtures, damaged plaster or spalling concrete and storage of combustible items.

Lift performance was assessed to be top tier if town councils had less than two lift faults per 10 lifts monthly, and less than one hour of downtime per lift monthly.

Service and conservancy charges arrears management was assessed as green if less than 40 per cent of the monthly collectible fees were overdue, and less than four in 100 households owed arrears for three months or more.

A separate report that assesses town councils’ corporate governance and internal controls over the same period will be published at the end of 2025.

This is after MND receives and reviews the town councils’ audited financial statements and their auditors’ reports.

In the upcoming year, MND will not be publishing the operationa...