At MND, he oversees public housing policies, Singapore’s city planning, the built environment sector, and conservation of nature and heritage buildings, and. At MSF, Desmond focuses on delivering more coordinated access to social services for individuals and families. He introduced ComLink+ to support families with children living in rental flats. He also works with partners to address community issues, such as the New Environment Action Team (NEAT) to tackle hoarding inside homes, and the Partners Engaging and Empowering Rough Sleepers (PEERS) Network. 

As MP for Boon Lay and West Coast, Desmond has focused on strengthening collaboration between community volunteers, government agencies and partners in order to roll out local social programmes. For example, he launched the Gift-A-Family programme to mobilise stronger community support for ComLink+ families, and is coordinating across groups to promote health screening, medical follow-up and social activities for seniors under AgeWellSG. He has rolled out initiatives to address everyday necessities, such as Project 100=50 to provide half-priced grocery shopping, Safe Sound Sleeping Places (S3Ps) in West Coast and Boon Lay to provide temporary shelter to the homeless and rough sleepers, care bag distribution sessions, and free haircutting and mobile TCM services. In addition, he has worked on improving the living environment for residents, with infrastructure upgrades such as sheltered linkways, cycling path, senior-friendly features and green initiatives with the Nature Kakis.  

Desmond is married with three children.