I would say its not a bad place if:
1) You want more reasonable hours with ok compensation (ok, but not great)
2) You have a genuine interest in the job you are applying for (e.g. if you are applying for a regulatory role than you should at least be mildly interested in regulatory supervision). The reason is because such skills may or may not be easily transferable outside.
However, you should spend more time considering if:
1) You want to develop technical industry skills. E.g. Let's say you join the
MAS department that supervises banks. You won't learn technical banking skills like credit analysis of SMEs. Rather, you learn the regulations that banks need to comply with and how to assess the risks of a bank (geddit? they are different things).
2) You cannot work with red tape. The amount of red tape in
MAS is considerable, similar to other stat boards or ministries. However, this is also highly dependent on your boss. If your boss is a big picture guy, then stuff moves quite easily. If he isn't, then bottlenecks will appear in the process which makes it incredibly slow and frustrating.
For example, if you propose something new, there will be 99 questions asked by people up the chain. This is normal, for it is important to get clarity before proceeding. However, let's say after more research, the proposal is clearly not feasible anymore and you suggest to scrap it. You will also get asked 99 questions, such as: why was it proposed in the first place, are you sure its really not feasible, did you ask XXX for their opinion, what did YYY have to say about this, will we really be ok without the proposal, can you do an alternative proposal, etc. Had this been in the private sector, it would have taken less than a day to resolve, as things that are clearly not feasible would be simply chucked aside.
Yes, a large part of the job is dealing with red tape like this and while most people can take it, some simply can't.
3) You are not ok with people correcting your words/sentences even if they have the same meaning. This is a feature that almost everyone who does a government job will encounter. Most people get shocked at the start regardless.
Everyone has their own writing style, and it is always possible to construct two different sentences that mean the same thing. However, due to red tape, your boss may want specific edits to an email that you are sending out. You read his edits, and feel strongly that they mean exactly the same thing as what you wrote. Nonetheless, you have no say in the matter but to go along with him. Alternatively, you could try and reason with him but there would be little benefit as it would seem that you are arguing over a trivial issue.
If you absolutely cannot accept this, don't join. But most people get over it after a few weeks, having been resigned to their fate.