SA Management Development Institute& Department of Public Service & Administration: Annual Report

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Meeting report

PUBLIC SERVICE & ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
31 October 2007
S A MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE& DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: ANNUAL REPORT 2006/7 BRIEFINGS

Acting Chairperson: Mr M Baloyi ( ANC)

Documents handed out:
Department of Public Service and Administration Annual Report 2006/7 presentation
Department of Public Service and Administration Annual Report 2006/7 [available at www.dpsa.gov.za]
South African Management Development and Training Institute Annual Report 2006/7 presentation
South African Management Development and Training Institute Annual Report 2006/7 [available at www.samdi.gov.za]

Audio recording of meeting

SUMMARY
The committee heard presentations from the Department of Public Service and Administration and the South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) on their Annual Reports for 2006/7. The DPSA annual report focused on strategic outputs, programme performance and indicators, human resource performance and budget allocations and financial performance. Members questioned whether the figures provided by the Department in regard to vacancies were reliable, sought comment on allegations that government departments were not paying for services rendered by the State Information Technology Agency, asked the reasons for resignations, questioned the structuring of staffing around the funding rather than a strategy, asked for comment on disability figures, sought clarity on the suspected fraud, and on the situation where an employee suspected of misconduct resigned.

The SAMDI presentation focused on the context and performance of SAMDI, the transformation of SAMDI to an academy, the implementation of new strategies to improve SAMDI and the progress with transformation. SAMDI outlined its mandate as an institution that was aimed at providing high quality, user oriented training and organisational development to the public service to improve service delivery and implementation. Questions were posed to SAMDI on the involvement of higher education institutions, whether the programmes were compulsory, and the co-sourcing of audit work.

MINUTES
Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA): Annual Report Briefing
The Department of Public Service and Administration briefed the Committee on its performance as set out in the Annual Report for 2006/07. The briefing was attended to by The department was represented by Prof Richard Levin, Director General, Collette Clark, Deputy Director General, Human Resource Management, Ms Vuyelwa Vumendlini, Chief Director, Remuneration Policy and Job Evaluation and Desiree Wilsenach, Acting CFO. The Department reported that it had delivered on most of its outputs and preparatory work had commenced in other areas.

Under the area of administration DPSA reported effective finance and security. There was a consistent application of performance management systems. Under Human Resource Management and Development, DPSA had introduced an employee wellness policy framework. DPSA noted that other public sector departments were starting to apply the framework also. In respect of its own occupancy, DPSA reported that 79% of posts were filled. The Committee raised queries for clarity on this point, stating that mixed reports had been received on the vacancy rate. The DPSA then provided further information on the vacancies, and explained why there had been resignations from the Department.

In respect of the financial statements, the Department reported that the final appropriation had been R442 million, of which R429million was spent. Where challenges were identified in the report, steps had been put in place to address them.

Discussion
Mr I Julies (DA) asked the Department if it was true that the State Information Technology Agency was struggling to receive payment from government departments for the services it had rendered.

Prof Levin replied that in fact the problem lay with SITA, as it issued invoices late.

Mr K Minnie (DA) said that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) had mentioned that government departments were not giving the right figures when talking about vacancy rates. He asked how they were expected to address the issue if the vacancy figures were contradictory.

Prof Levin replied that there had been many reports on the vacancy issues and all of these reports had had different statistics. He said that the accurate figures were the audited ones, and the Department had presented those audited statistics.

Dr U Roopnarain (IFP) commented that the skills issue was a global phenomenon and was partially responsible for the vacancy rate.

Ms M Matsomela (ANC) then asked what the major reasons were for people resigning from the DPSA, and what was being done about it.

Prof Levin said that people resigned for various reasons, some to seek greener pastures and others simply because they had problems with management. The Department was attempting to make exit interviews compulsory, so that it could know what the actual problem was. Prof Levin further said that he found that managers were not equipped to work with staff and thus the DPSA was trying to equip managers with the relevant skills to assist them deal with staff.

Ms Matsomela asked why DPSA was structuring its staff based on the funding it could access, rather than having a skills strategy, because she believed that a Department’s restructuring was supposed to be based on strategy.

Prof Levin replied that the Department started with a restructuring programme based on strategy, but could not accomplish much because of a lack of funding from treasury.

Mr A Nyambi (ANC) referred to the issue of people living with disability. He asked if the figure given by the Department could not be profiled according to race and gender.

Prof Levin agreed that it was necessary to have this, and that there was a section with this profiling in the Annual Report.

Mr Nyambi asked Prof Levin to tell the Committee more about the discovery that was made by the Special Investigation Unit with regard to the suspected fraud in the Department’s learning programme.

Prof Levin said that the matter was dealt with, the chief culprit was in police custody and was facing charges. DPSA dealt with the matter efficiently and the Department’s response was rapid, so that it was able to recover some of the money as bank accounts were frozen.

Mr Julies took the Committee back to the issue of vacancies and asked why there were conflicting reports on the vacancy issue. The system that was in place in the Department was giving conflicting reports, and he commented that the left hand did not know what the right was doing”. In making this statement, Jules was referring to the computer system that the DPSA had in place.

Ms Collette Clark said that the issue of conflicting data arose in situations where there might be 5 000 vacancies and 5 000 temporarily employed workers filling those vacancies. The workers were actually being paid although the posts were not filled with “permanent” staff; it did no mean that ghost workers were being paid.

Mr Nyambi then asked what would happen if an official resigned while a case against him or her was pending.

Prof Levin said that was a problem, and where officials resigned during a case, then the case would generally not be pursued.

Ms Matsomela said that she was not pleased with the response given by Prof Levin around the restructuring being dependent on funding. She felt that this would jeopardise service delivery.

Prof Levin said that DPSA accepted what Ms Matsomela was saying and that the Department needed to look at the restructuring issue according to a strategy. He further added that if the Department could work co-operatively it could work better.

South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI)
The delegation from the South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) giving the presentation consisted of Dr Mark Orkin, Director- General, South African Management Institute, Mr David McThomas, Chief Financial Officer, and Prof Stephen Hendricks, Deputy Director General.

SAMDI began the presentation by giving its context, stating that its mandate was to provide high quality and user orientated training and organisational development to the public service, to improve service delivery and implementation. The public service was very complex, with 1,3 million public servant, of whom 75% were African, 9% coloured and 4% Asian. It was also noted that even though the number of females in public service was high, only 1% of them were in Senior Management Services.

The institution tabled the training statistics by Chief Directorate, and reported an improvement of 24% in the training statistics from the previous year, but noted that it fell short by 16% of reaching its target. It justified this by saying that the target had been rather too ambitious in comparison with the resources available. However SAMDI still noted other performance highlights in their performance deliverables. The portfolio of current programmes was set out, and selected highlights were tabled, including the Accelerated Development Programme, overwhelming demand for training from local government, 11 programmes of training for financial management being approved by National Treasury, and targeting of 100 000 new entrants into the public service each year through the Mass Induction Programme. Other initiatives included gender mainstreaming, ethics management and anti-corruption.

The financial statements of SAMDI were tabled. It was noted that SAMDI had an under spending of R 650 000 which was blamed on vacancies on the staff establishment. The Training Trading account showed a surplus, partially as a result of the enhanced debt recovery process. SAMDI reported an unqualified audit report for both the SAMDI Vote and Trading Account, for four consecutive years.

Other sections of the presentation, supported by detailed graphs and figures, set out the human resources development, the gender and disability profiles, various health policies, the sources of SAMDI output, the national departments’ training expenditure, and the process of transforming to an academy, which would require a paradigm shift. Focus areas for 2007/08, the donor funded programmes, support in post-conflict countries and projected growth figures were also tabled in detail.

Discussion
Ms Matsomela expressed her appreciation for the presentation, and went on to ask how SAMDI involved higher education institutions in their programmes.

Mr Rupert Motlala, representative of SAMDI, noted that SAMDI had a partnership with certain higher education institutions as it wanted to avoid duplicating its programmes. He said that SAMDI had sent out a tender for the training programme, but was also involved when it came to influencing the learning programmes. SAMDI was aiming to have the training address the key issues in government. SAMDI had a relationship with the University of Tshwane and had asked them to develop modules for the programme.

Ms Matsomela asked if the managers who went to training programmes organised by SAMDI did so voluntarily or were selected by their supervisors.

Mr Motlala responded that public servants could volunteer to join the programmes but at times supervisors would nominate their staff. SAMDI also organised that certain programmes should be compulsory, such as the programme on the induction of workers into the public sector.

Mr Nyambi noted that according to the report the Auditing was co-sourced to KPMG, and he asked how this could be done. .

Dr Orkin said that SAMDI could not take all the credit as this was first done by the Department of Science and Technology. He said that smaller departments could not offer a career path to auditors, as there was not sufficient work to develop them, and therefore external sources would be found. He also noted that the person allocated to do the auditing was still working within their buildings and reported directly to the Chair of the audit committee of SAMDI and the Director General.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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