State of the Public Service Report 2009: Public Service Commission & Governance & Administration Cluster report: Department of Public Service & Administration

Public Service and Administration

15 September 2009
Chairperson: Ms J Moloi-Moropa (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Committee received presentations from the Public Service Commission and the Department of Public Service and Administration on the State of the Public Service Report 2009 and the Governance and Administration Cluster respectively.

The Public Service Commission described how the 2009 report focused on readiness for the 2010 World Cup. The report gave a high level overview of the nine constitutional values of public administration. The presentation stressed that although accountability mechanisms existed, compliance at present was unsatisfactory. Only four out of 120 departments had received clean audits, and this was of concern. Transparency would be achieved by providing timely, accessible and accurate information. There needed to be better compliance with the Promotion of Access to Information Act. There also needed to be swifter filling of vacant posts, and more attention paid to the targets on gender and disability. The theme of “readiness” in the report emphasised the need to leverage all resources properly for long-term social development.

The presentation by the Department of Public Service and Administration set out the background to the cluster system and described the Programme of Action being undertaken by the Governance and Administration Cluster. The projects in this Programme included improving the capability at the centre of government for strategic leadership and capacity of the public service, and key to this had been the establishment of the National Planning Commission. E-government, the review of provincial and local government and strengthening human resources capacity, especially in financial management, were all of importance. The second objective was to substantially improve the delivery and quality of services, which was in part achieved by the National Macro-Organisation project of the State, which aimed to better align government and service delivery. Thirdly, a culture and practice of transparent, honest and accountable public service was to be encouraged. The Cluster also aimed to strengthen engagement with society, democratic institutions and integrity and legitimacy of constitutional bodies, through building partnerships, encouraging public participation, and furthering the recommendations of the ad hoc Committee on the functioning of Chapter 9 institutions.

Members asked questions on a wide range of issues. They asked about media reports of corruption in the State Information Technology Agency, the new Presidential Hotline, monitoring and evaluation of Public Service Commission’s recommendations and representation targets in public service employment. Members also asked about the workings of the cluster system, the cooling-off period for public servants going into the private sector, the new National Planning Commission and structuring of Government Departments and the functioning of the Thusong Centres. Some members expressed their disappointment at the lack of concrete action being taken to improve conditions for the people of South Africa.

Meeting report

State of the Public Service: Public Service Commission (PSC) report
Mr Indran Naidoo, Deputy Director-General, Monitoring and Evaluation, PSC gave a presentation on the State of the Public Service (SOPS) Report 2009, which looked at the readiness of the public service for 2010 and beyond.

Mr Naidoo said that there were nine constitutional values and principles of public administration, and the SOPS report was a high level oversight of performance against these values. He went through each one in turn. The public service should demonstrate a high standard of professional ethics, and the PSC believed that there could be improvement in managing misconduct, financial disclosures and responding to the National Anti-Corruption Hotline. He also said that public service should ensure efficient use of resources, both during and after the World Cup.

Mr Naidoo pointed out that public administration must be oriented at development. Not only should services have been provided in a fair manner, but it was important that public administration was seen to be fair. He also said that it was important that the public was involved in policy-making and that public participation should not be sacrificed to managerial freedom. Citizens should feel that their opinions were valued.

He said that accountability mechanisms existed but that compliance at present was unsatisfactory. Only four out of 120 departments had received clean audits, and this was of concern. He said that transparency would be achieved by providing timely, accessible and accurate information. Whilst adherence to the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was generally unsatisfactory, there were some examples of good practice from which departments could learn. He stated that human resource practices in public services must remain accountable, despite pressures caused by the World Cup. He noted that the target for filling vacant posts was 90 days but some departments were taking up to 200 days. Finally he said that it was important that the public administration in South Africa was representative of the people of the country. Many of the targets had been met, but the targets on gender and disability remained a challenge.

Mr Naidoo said, in conclusion, that the World Cup provided many opportunities and that public service should take advantage of these. He said that this was the thread running through much of the SOPS report.

Dr Ralph Mgijima, Chairperson, PSC, added that the theme of “readiness” was chosen for the SOPS report to reflect the importance of the World Cup, in terms of resources, and the need to leverage these resources properly for long-term social development. It was also an opportunity for South Africa to showcase its philosophy and demonstrate effective and proper service delivery. He said that the SOPS report had been through a process of round-table discussions with the public service, academics and other experts.

Discussion
Ms H Van Schalkwyk (DA) asked about reports in the press that the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) had acknowledged corruption and fraud. She felt that, because this was announced at an international conference, it was not good for South African public services.

Hon Roy Padayachie, Deputy Minister for Public Service and Administration, pointed out that the media report had been misunderstood. He said that this issue had been discussed at the GovTech conference, but that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SITA did not admit that there was corruption in the organisation. The CEO had given a presentation which set out the challenges faced by SITA in revitalising itself, and one of these was dealing with the perception that SITA was corrupt, which was driven by the media. The Deputy Minister said that this perception had its roots among industrial players, primarily those who had lost tenders and bids. He said that the CEO had pointed out that if the perception was not dealt with, it would damage the functioning of SITA as an organisation. The CEO had pleaded that if there was evidence and information of fraud, it should be disclosed, confidentially, through the hotline.

Ms Van Schalkwyk asked where the Committee members could get the correct information.

The Deputy Minister replied that the Committee should write to the CEO of SITA and ask for a copy of the presentation.

Mr E Sulliman (ANC) asked about the new Presidential Hotline and how this complemented the National Anti-Corruption Hotline. He asked who would investigate the issues raised on the Presidential Hotline. He also enquired about the reason for the low response rate of 12.4% to cases from the National Anti-Corruption Hotline.

Dr Mgijima replied that the PSC investigated a small number of high profile cases but passed most complaints to individual departments. The low response rate was because departments did not have the capacity to investigate. Guidelines had been given to departments. The PSC had advised on the Presidential Hotline and recognised there was some overlap in cases. There was a liaison person in each department but departmental capacity would again determine how successful investigations were.

The Deputy Minister added that the President wanted to establish a government that was responsive, caring and engaging. The new Presidential Hotline gave direct access for people to raise issues concerning them, and was supported in all levels of Government. He said that the President’s office would not deal directly with complaints but that the issues would be passed on to be dealt with by individual departments. The President’s office’s role would be to track complaints, gather reports of action taken and ensure accountability.

Mr E Rasool (ANC) was concerned that some things were being done specifically for 2010, rather than because of the principles of good public service. He felt that transparency and accountability should not be improved only because the world was watching. He pointed out that 80% compliance of financial disclosures had been reached. If 100% compliance was reached he wanted to know how these would be analysed. Departmental over- and under-expenditure was getting close to 0%, but he was concerned that pushing for no under-expenditure could encourage wasteful expenditure. He wanted to know what new measures could be used.

Ms J Maluleke (ANC) commented that the provincial departments of sport and recreation had under-spent. She asked what the Department or the Committee could do to address this problem.

Mr Naidoo said that after the 100% level was reached the PSC probed even further by scrutinising the financial disclosure forms.

Dr Mgijima said that the PSC took monitoring and evaluation very seriously, and was thinking about how to take these to the next level. He said that compliance was improving in some areas, and that these should be emphasised. He also pointed out that the quality of the expenditure was crucially important.

Ms A Dreyer (DA) commented that the information in the SOPS report 2009 was similar to previous years’ reports. This highlighted that there were recurring problems and it was important to act on these. She said that the PSC did a good job and that it was now up to the government to make sure that the shortcomings were addressed by implementing the PSC’s recommendations.

Dr Mgijima pointed out the capacity problems in the PSC and in Government in general.

The Chairperson asked about monitoring and evaluation. She wanted to know how the public service tracked the progress of the implementation of recommendations.

Mr Naidoo replied that the recommendations of the PSC were tracked on an annual basis to see how many were being addressed by the departments. The PSC had reached 101 departments across the country. Some of these were being visited for the second time and it was possible to check how many recommendations had been acted on. Generally the uptake of recommendations was not good. Departments had been put into one of three categories depending on their compliance with PSC recommendations in the past.

Mr Rasool stated that South Africa was rated 150th in the world as a country to do business with. He wondered if it was possible to overcome vested interests, and asked what the PSC recommended. Furthermore, he asked how the PSC would ensure that the gains achieved in representation would not be lost.

Ms Charmaine Julie, Regional Director, Western Cape, PSC, said that there had been increases in representation in public service jobs, but that there was a high turnover rate for blacks. There was also likely to be undercounting for disabled targets, since people did not want to disclose their disability status.

Ms Dreyer wondered if there was a similar issue with people not wanting to disclose their race, as the only way to do this was on a voluntary basis.

Ms Julie said that this had not been an issue as in all cases people’s race had been classified.

Work of the Governance and Administration Cluster: Briefing by Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA)
Mr Richard Levin, Director-General, DPSA, gave a presentation on the work of the Governance and Administration (G&A) Cluster. The Presidential Review Commission (1998) commented on the need for better coordination in Government and this resulted in the cluster system being established in 1999. In 2004 Programmes of Action (POA) were introduced, on which clusters must report to Cabinet. This aimed to improve the openness and transparency of the political process.

Mr Levin described the system of five Cabinet Committees, the Forum of South African Directors-General (FOSAD) and the seven FOSAD Clusters. The G&A Cluster was coordinated by the DPSA and the Department for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CGTA). The Cluster met monthly for four hours and covered briefings for Cabinet and FOSAD, strategic issues in governance and administration, and reported on ongoing projects.

He said that the most important strategic priority in the Medium Term Strategic Framework for the G&A Cluster was: “Building a developmental state, including improvement of public services and strengthening democratic institutions.” Within this there were four objectives. Mr Levin went on to describe the projects in the POA for each objective.

The first objective he outlined was to improve the capability at the centre of government for strategic leadership and capacity of the public service. The key piece of work was the establishment of a National Planning Commission, on which a Green Paper had been published. The G&A Cluster was also working on the implementation of e-government, led by the DPSA, and undertaking a review of provincial and local government, led by CGTA. A major piece of work to achieve this objective was to strengthen human resource capacity across government. The POA also encompassed leadership and management development programmes, improved financial management (led by National Treasury and CGTA) and capacity building in local government.

The second objective for the Cluster was to substantially improve the delivery and quality of services. Following the restructuring of the Cabinet, the National Macro-organisation of the State (NMOS) project was a large piece of work. It involved creating, renaming, splitting and transferring functions between Ministries. The aim of this restructuring was to better align government and, as a result, better service delivery. The POA also included programmes to review and strengthen the functioning of Thusong Service Centres and frontline offices.

The third objective was to entrench a culture and practice of transparent, honest and accountable public service. The work in this area was strongly focused on anti-corruption measures, such as a Corruption Management Information System and a Conflict of Interest Framework. The POA also covered the implementation of the PAIA and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA).

The final objective for the Cluster was to strengthen engagement with society, democratic institutions and integrity and legitimacy of constitutional bodies. This was being done by building numerous partnerships, encouraging public participation and developing a response to the work of the ad hoc Committee reporting on the Chapter 9 institutions, chaired by Prof Asmal.

Finally, Mr Levin presented a timeline of the G&A Cluster’s work. There would be a report to Cabinet on 4 November 2009, and Parliamentary briefings the following week. The final reports on the 2009 POA would go to Cabinet Lekgotla in January 2010. Mr Levin concluded by saying that, while silos still existed, there was now better integration and a strong framework to address the problem. He said that the POA provided focus for the clusters and, since Cabinet monitored the programme, there was more transparent and participatory government. The work of the Cluster was directed by the strategic priorities and objectives, with the ultimate aim of improving the lives of South Africa’s people.

Discussion
Ms Dreyer highlighted certain phrases in the presentation, such as “restructuring”, “clusters”, “working sessions”, “briefing”, “drawing up programmes”, “frameworks”, “manual” and “coordinated response”. She believed that these were too theoretical and vague. She commented on the need to take concrete steps by following the recommendations of the PSC. She believed that new structures would not improve matters for the people and was sceptical of the usefulness of much of the work.

Mr Levin said that part of the issue was that the timing of the presentation meant that it was only describing a programme of work. It would have been preferable to make a presentation to the Committee when a report had been published, with conclusions on where progress was being made. The aim of the presentation was to familiarise the Committee with the work of the G&A Cluster.

Ms N November (ANC) said that, at the grassroots level, the problem was that municipalities and departments were not always working together. She felt that nothing was happening on the ground and that any monitoring and evaluation work was taking too long.

Mr Levin replied that the Single Public Service Initiative attempted to harmonise approaches, rationalise the distribution of resources and optimise deployment of human resources. It aimed to ensure that the policies and programmes of government were implemented.

The Deputy Minister said that he was not sure that Government had sufficiently understood how complex the problems of service delivery were. He said that it was not simply a problem of people being lazy or incompetent and that a deeper probe was necessary to interrogate these complex problems.

Mr Rasool commented that the Committee should accept the invitation of the Deputy Minister and DPSA to have a debate on the problems. He said that the 15 year review and the Household Survey would help the Committee engage with the issues.

Mr Rasool asked what the negative effects of the silo system had been. He also asked how the integration of South African government measured against international standards.

Mr Levin replied that there were problems across Government with people working in silos. There was a need to coordinate activities since it was often difficult for one institution, or level, of Government to achieve desired outcomes whilst working independently.

Mr Rasool asked about how cross-Cluster coordination was managed.

Mr Levin replied that this would be achieved through Cabinet. It would identify problems that required inter-cluster coordination and establish inter-departmental teams to look at specific issues.

Mr L Ramatlakane (COPE) asked about the “cooling-off period” for Directors-General leaving public service and moving to the private sector. He asked what the thinking was on this in the DPSA.

Mr Levin said that the DPSA made formulations on this subject for the Public Administration Management Bill. He said that it was a complicated issue where, for example, a person’s rights could be infringed if a blanket ruling was made. He said that the need was to focus on dealings with business and tendering processes. Legal provisions were needed to cater for the situation where a person might be involved in awarding a tender and then worked for the winning company. This issue was a challenge for public service, not just in South Africa but in many countries. He pointed out that the previous system had used Permanent Secretaries, and the move away from this was to prevent stagnation in the public service.

Mr Ramatlakane asked whether the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) should be integrated within the POA and not be a separate measure.

Mr Levin said that the APRM was multi-sectoral, also involving civil society and business, but was trying to create maximum synergy with the Government’s POA.

Mr Rasool asked about the new National Planning Commission, Department for Performance Management and Evaluation and Department of Economic Development and how these changes affected the Cluster system.

Mr Levin said that the Cabinet took the decision on macro restructuring and that it had required a huge amount of work from the DPSA to carry this through.

The Deputy Minister said that the NMOS project was one of the critical tools of reorganising the state. The DPSA had the large responsibility of leading this process in Government. An overarching feature was the move towards outcomes-based government, which was a system of government that could be measured on performance outcomes. The National Planning Commission was central to this since it was charged with defining these performance outcomes through a participatory process.

The Chairperson said that the Committee would want to look in more detail at the functioning and implementation of the Thusong centres.

Mr Levin said that a review of the Thusong centres was being conducted and this would be made available to the Committee to help Members in their outreach work.

The Chairperson asked the DPSA to follow up on a previous commitment to consider using a pool of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from the National Treasury to assist those departments that had received poor audit reports.

The Chairperson commented that the presentation had been very useful to help the Committee understand the overarching strategies and programmes before getting into the detailed impact and implementation. She said that the next step was to consider how work could be moved into the municipalities. She thanked Mr Levin and the Deputy Minister for their attendance and presentation.

Other Committee Business
The Chairperson said that the Committee should spend time focusing on the Thusong centres and the Committee briefly discussed how best to organise the visits.

Adoption of Committee Minutes
The Chairperson tabled the minutes of four Committee meetings between 7 August 2009 and 2 September 2009. Members considered each report and adopted .

The meeting was adjourned.

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