The Department is tasked with a distinct mandate of government-wide monitoring and evaluation; a task fairly new in South Africa. Further, the 2011/12 financial year marked the first year in which the Department operated as a Budget Vote (Vote 6). For the most part the Department has been engaged in a learning-by-doing exercise of building programmes which includes putting the right systems, personnel and structures in place for optimal functioning of its programmes. However, the Department could not achieve a sizable number of its performance targets. Some performance targets could not be achieved largely due to the fact that they were not properly developed. In some instances the Department required full compliance and cooperation from relevant stakeholders to fully achieve its performance targets. Also there are instances where the Department did not follow applicable policies and legislations.