Chairperson, this House was very active an hour ago; I hope it will not be as active now as it was then.
Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Appropriations; Deputy Minister in the Presidency: Performance Monitoring and Evaluation as well as Administration in the Presidency; hon members; honoured guests; members of the audit committee; management and staff of the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation; members of the media; friends and comrades; and ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present the third Budget Vote of this young department, which has had remarkable achievements within a short space of time. The Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation is one of the two anchor programmes of the ANC government that received an overwhelming mandate from voters to govern this country for another five years from 2009.
The ANC made a commitment to all South Africans that it would introduce national planning and performance monitoring and evaluation to close the gap in long-term planning for the country and to ensure that government produced the key outcomes we want and our people desire.
There are no major changes or policy shifts from the strategic choices we made and published in our strategic plan and annual performance plan. We will continue on the journey we have started, that of monitoring government performance against the five key priorities of education, health, reduction of crime, job creation, and the development of rural communities. I will use this opportunity to report back on some of the advances we have made with our monitoring and evaluation programme, and to describe a few areas that we will focus on during this financial year.
This year marks the eve of our country's celebration of 20 years of South Africa's young democracy. This will be a time to reflect and take note of the achievements we have gained as a country in delivery to our people and in improving their lives for the better. It will also be an opportunity to reflect on the challenges ahead in the consolidation of our democracy.
During the last financial year, as a follow-up to the mid-term review, we started doing research work for the production of a 20-year review of the country's progress towards becoming a nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous society. We set ourselves the target of publishing the 20-year review by the end of this year.
The 20-year review will use evidence to reflect on the progress we have made, as well as the challenges we have faced since 1994. It will also reflect on the things we need to do going forward in order to consolidate the gains we have made and plug the gaps that exist.
The building blocks of the review will be the work we have done so far through the outcomes approach, as well as existing and new research work which is being undertaken by us and by various research institutions. The five thematic issues that will inform the review will be: the extent to which the wellbeing of the citizens has changed; the way in which society has been transformed; changes that have occurred in the wider environment; changes that have occurred in government; and, finally, international outcomes. This government has delivered many services which have led to the improvement of the lives of our people, but more still needs to be done. Our latest development indicators report, which will be released shortly, provides an indication of the progress made in a variety of areas. The indicators reveal that, with regard to the delivery of basic municipal services, access to the basic level of water infrastructure increased from 92% of households in 2009 to 95% in 2012; access to a minimum level of sanitation infrastructure increased from 77% in 2009 to 85% in 2012; and access to electricity increased from 81% in 2009 to 88% in 2012.
An example with regard to the building of a nonsexist society is that there has been a vast improvement in the representation of women in all three tiers of government since 1994.
In 2009 we undertook to make government work better, faster and smarter. We did this by introducing the outcomes approach and negotiating interdepartmental and intergovernmental delivery agreements for the 12 priority outcomes.
We have been monitoring progress on the implementation of the delivery agreements for the outcomes, as well as facilitating quarterly reporting to Cabinet. We are pleased that the evidence and trends emerging from our work confirm that we are correct to focus the attention of our nation and the government on these key priority areas. In June last year we published the mid-term review of progress made against the targets set in the delivery agreements. The review described the good progress which had been made and made concrete proposals for steps to be taken to improve performance in areas where there had not been as much progress as had been hoped for. For example, unemployment remains a challenge, and our economic growth rate remains too low. The implementation of the National Development Plan, NDP, the National Infrastructure Plan, the New Growth Path, NGP, and the Industrial Policy Action Plan should catalyse investment and support industry in creating more employment.
Many departments have adopted the new approach of focusing on measurable results and impacts, and government as a whole is starting to achieve a number of targets that we set for ourselves. There is improved co- ordination between government departments and between the three spheres of government, particularly in the important concurrent functions of basic education and health. In both of these sectors the national and provincial departments are now working together more effectively to improve service delivery. This is particularly so in the health sector, where the national department has been able to successfully oversee a range of improvements in the delivery of health services at the provincial level.
As a result, life expectancy has improved from 56 years in 2009 to 60 years in 2012. The infant and under-five mortality rates have been reduced from 40 and 56 per 1 000 live births respectively in 2009 to 30 and 40 per 1 000 live births. The mother-to-child transmission of HIV rate has declined from 3,5% in 2009 to 2,7% in 2012. The tuberculosis cure rate increased from 63% in 2009 to 74% in 2012. Patient satisfaction measured through the Statistics South Africa General Household Survey has also improved from 54% in 2009 to 64% in 2011.
We are now working with the National Treasury and the national departments responsible for concurrent functions to ascertain the potential for further improvement in the management of concurrent functions through the greater use of national norms and standards, and drawing on the successes in our experience in the health sector.
With regard to education and skills, the number of learners matriculating each year has been increasing steadily, from 110 000 in 2009 to 136 000 in 2012. The percentage of Grade 1 learners who attended formal Grade R classes increased from 80% in 2009 to over 90% in 2013. There has been an improvement in Grade 3 literacy, which has risen from 48% of learners operating at a minimum literacy level in 2009 to 52% in 2012.
Due to increased standard setting, monitoring and support by the Department of Basic Education, the delivery of textbooks by the provincial education departments has improved remarkably over the last year. A total of 98% of textbooks that had been planned to be delivered had been delivered by the beginning of the 2013 school year.
The number of young people in learnerships and artisan programmes has increased, as has the number of learners in further education and training, FET, colleges. The FET college pass rate improved by about 10% on average between 2009 and 2012. The placement rate of FET college graduates has also improved, from 22% in 2009 to 41% in 2012.
There has been a decrease in overall serious crime from 3 924 cases per 100 000 of the population in 2009 to 3 608 cases in 2012. There have also been reductions in the rates of contact crimes and trio crimes. In regard to combating corruption involving amounts of money larger than R5 million, 239 people were arrested and 32 people convicted between the years 2009 and 2012.
While the economy has been growing and creating more jobs, the number of people seeking work has also increased. This, coupled with the global economic downturn, has inhibited our ability to meet our targets for reducing unemployment. As I mentioned earlier, the government will remain focused on addressing this key issue.
As a department we play a particularly important role in "Outcome 12: an efficient, effective and development-oriented Public Service". We believe that by improving the quality of monitoring and evaluation within departments, we will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Public Service.
There are still a number of challenges to overcome in order to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation practices in government. Many of the plans for the programmes of departments are not yet sufficiently rigorous in regard to measuring baseline data and in clearly explaining how the programme will achieve its intended objectives. There is not yet enough measurement of outcomes and impacts, and some departments do not yet have the necessary information management systems in place to do this. We need to do more to build a culture of continuous improvement, as opposed to keeping on doing things in the same way because they have always been done that way.
In order to address these challenges, we are engaged in a range of monitoring and evaluation capacity-building initiatives, including managing national and provincial monitoring and evaluation forums as well as monitoring and evaluation learning networks, developing guidelines and training courses for officials, and partnering with other countries to learn and share best practices. In order to build capacity for Monitoring and Evaluation, we have partnered with the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama, and the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association, Samea.
The department is also contributing to Outcome 12 by monitoring a range of indicators of Public Service efficiency and effectiveness, by monitoring the quality of management practices in departments and municipalities, and by monitoring the quality of frontline service delivery to citizens, which the Deputy Minister will elaborate on in detail. Some of the indicators which we have been monitoring include the payment of suppliers within 30 days, the development and implementation of service delivery improvement plans, the time taken to fill vacancies and to finalise disciplinary cases, and the finalisation of anticorruption and Presidential Hotline cases.
With regard to the quality of frontline service delivery, there has been marked improvement in some departments. For example, the average number of days taken by the SA Social Security Agency, Sassa, to process a social grant application decreased from 30 days in 2009 to five days in 2012. This is a remarkable achievement. There has also been an improvement in the average time taken by the police to respond to calls for assistance.
In September 2012 President Zuma received the NDP on behalf of our nation from the National Planning Commission. The NDP has been adopted by Cabinet and will be implemented by this government. The NDP provides a roadmap for tackling the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
With its adoption we now have a shared long-term strategic framework within which more detailed planning can take place. The crucial challenge is to ensure that medium and short-term planning is situated within the context of the long-term agenda of the NDP. In order to achieve this, in collaboration with the National Planning Commission Secretariat we are currently in the process of transferring the NDP priorities into the 2014- 2019 Medium-Term Strategic Framework, MTSF.
The MTSF will be positioned as the first five-year building block of the NDP and will inform the new five-year strategic plans of national and provincial departments. This will result in a clear line of sight between the actions and targets in the NDP and the actions and targets in the plans of individual departments, which in turn will ensure that the NDP is thoroughly and systematically implemented. It will also ensure that progress made with the key actions and targets in the NDP will be regularly reported on to Parliament through the annual reporting process.
There is a high correlation between the priorities in the NDP and the current 12 priority outcomes. Many of the indicators and targets are consistent and overlap with the current delivery agreements. This correlation will enable us to maintain continuity in the planning, monitoring and evaluation processes of government. The draft MTSF will be submitted to the July Cabinet lekgotla for consideration and finalisation, and for submission to the new Cabinet for consideration after the 2014 national election.
Last year we indicated that we would work with other government departments and provinces to identify key projects, programmes, plans and policies to be evaluated. Seven evaluations started in the past financial year and will be completed in this current financial year, and improvement plans will be developed and monitored. We have begun with preparatory work for 16 evaluations to be carried out in the current financial year.
In the three years of its existence the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation has made good progress, in collaboration with our sister departments, in developing, piloting, implementing and monitoring the evaluation systems in order to contribute to the building of a capable and developmental state.
Last year we reported that we had worked with other transversal departments and institutions, as well as the offices of the premiers, in developing and piloting an instrument to monitor management practices in national and provincial departments. This instrument, the Management Performance Assessment Tool, MPAT, draws on the monitoring work of other institutions, such as the Auditor-General and the Public Service Commission, PSC, but does not duplicate their work. It provides a single holistic picture of the state of management practices in departments. Generally, audits focus on compliance only, whereas MPAT focuses on getting managers to work more smartly. This is important for improving government performance; for example, getting departments to procure results more smartly in better service delivery by suppliers and contractors, and in savings from reducing corruption and increasing value for money.
We also said last year that the MPAT assessments would be repeated annually so that improvements could be tracked. We are pleased to announce that in the past financial year 156 national and provincial departments participated in the assessments. This represents a substantial increase over the 103 departments which participated in the 2011-12 assessment cycle.
This increased level of participation can be attributed to the fact that many departments have indicated that they find the assessment process useful. The process of getting the top management of each department to assess themselves against a holistic set of good practice management standards, and to agree on required improvements, is the main value added to the MPAT assessment process. Management practices in departments are generally weak, because top management has not paid sufficient attention to improving them. By carrying out annual assessments, the Presidency and the offices of the premiers are sending out a clear message that improving administration is a priority of government.
The monitoring of management practices is starting to bear fruit in a number of areas. For example, the average time taken to fill funded vacant posts in national and provincial departments has improved from nine months in 2010 to four months in 2012. The responsiveness of departments to cases referred to them from Chapter 9 institutions and from the National Anticorruption Hotline has also improved. Compliance rates regarding important issues, such as finalising performance agreements for heads of departments, HODs, and the submission of financial disclosure forms by senior managers, have improved.
However, there is still much room for improvement in departments, particularly in administrative areas such as the payment of suppliers within 30 days and the setting and monitoring of service delivery standards. We will continue to closely monitor these issues to ensure that they improve.
The diagnostics in the NDP point to a South African local government system that has inherent weaknesses in capacity and performance. These include ineffective service delivery due to poor planning, poor administrative and financial management practices, shortage of skills, and undue political influence in the recruitment of senior managers, amongst others. Last year, we reported that we had started to develop an appropriate tool to assess the quality of management practices and basic service delivery in municipalities in collaboration with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the National Treasury.
This has been done, and during this year we will be piloting the implementation of the Municipal Assessment Tool, MAT, focusing on both the quality of generic management practices, such as planning, human resources, financial management, community engagement and governance, and the quality of basic service delivery. The pilot phase will comprise the assessment of 10 municipalities, which will inform the refinement of the assessment tool so that assessments of municipalities can start taking place more widely from next year. We hope that, once this is embedded in the system of local government, it will go a long way towards laying a firm foundation for sustained improvement in the performance of municipalities.
One of the intentions of the MPAT and MAT assessments is to lead and drive a process of addressing issues raised by the Auditor-General, and we expect that these assessments will result in improved audit reports over time.
We are in the process of establishing an operational management support programme, in partnership with National Treasury and the private sector, with the aim of assisting departments and municipalities to address some of the operational weaknesses that we have identified through our assessment tools and Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring programmes. The biggest challenge facing the department is to ensure that other departments and municipalities act on monitoring and evaluation information. In the past, members have proposed that the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation should be given "teeth" to enable it to enforce its recommendations. However, I would like to advise members to consider this proposal very carefully. There is an existing legal system for accountability and consequences for poor performance, as described, for example, in the Public Service Act and Public Finance Management Act, PFMA. In line with the Constitution, this legal system emphasises the accountability of the executive authorities and accounting officers of departments to Parliament. If Parliament calls departments to account for how they are acting on monitoring and evaluation findings, it will help the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to ensure that its findings are acted upon. We therefore look forward to receiving many more invitations to make presentations to portfolio committees.
The argument for giving the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation "teeth" has also been one of the arguments for drafting enabling legislation for performance monitoring and evaluation. The department is continuing to explore this issue with other departments at the administrative centre of government and will bring an initial policy document to the Standing Committee on Appropriations in the coming months.
In the last financial year we presented the first audited annual report for the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation. The Auditor- General of South Africa expressed an unqualified audit opinion. We are currently compiling our annual report for the financial year which ended on 31 March 2013. We are confident that once again we will receive a favourable audit opinion.
Let me turn to the budget. The department has been allocated R192,7 million for the 2013-14 financial year. Of this, R109 million will be spent on the compensation of employees, R75 million on goods and services, and R9 million on payments for capital assets.
The department has four budget programmes, which correspond with the four branches of the department. The budget has been allocated to these programmes as follows: R57 million for administration, R61 million for outcomes monitoring and evaluation, R17 million for monitoring and evaluation systems co-ordination and support, and R57 million for public sector oversight.
In conclusion, as our approach to monitoring and evaluation matures, we increasingly recognise the need to strengthen the involvement of citizens in monitoring government service delivery. We are excited to announce that a citizen-based monitoring programme is now being piloted with the SA Police Service and the Departments of Health and of Social Development to give practical expression to this commitment. The Deputy Minister will further elaborate on this exciting initiative.
I would like to thank the staff and management of the department, the portfolio committee, and Parliament for their collaboration and the work which we have been doing together with the departments which have been assisting us. Through you, Chair, I now commend the Budget Vote to the House. Thank you. [Applause.]