I will spare you that.
As much as the committee resolved to report the findings of the Public Service Commission to the National Assembly, NA, intense engagements and proposals were directed at the style and methodology of and the approach to future reporting on the state of the Public Service. The committee expects a report that will give an overview of the entire performance in regard to the basic values and principles governing the public administration, as outlined in section 195(1) of the Constitution, as I have indicated.
During our oversight visit to the Public Service Commission this year, the commission presented an initiative relating to an instrument they had started developing for performance evaluation. We view such an instrument as a good move towards the achievement of an overarching evaluation of the entire Public Service, as expected by the committee on behalf of this Parliament.
Good discussion and interaction took place and meaningful progress has started on State of the Public Service reporting between the portfolio committee and the Public Service Commission itself. There has been thorough engagement in regard to how we move forward.
To fulfil its constitutional function, the Public Service Commission tabled its report on the State of the Public Service Commission in November 2010 and briefed the portfolio committee on 16 February 2011. This report was adopted on 13 April, after thorough deliberation and consideration. Of course there were some points of argument in reference to the Constitution and the relevance of the reporting itself.
Chairperson, the committee's main concern was that the Public Service Commission's report did not provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the Public Service as a whole, as defined broadly in section 195(1) of the Constitution. The values and principles of the public administration, in terms of this broad definition, are meant to apply to all spheres of government, organs of state and public enterprises. This is as outlined in the Constitution.
In this case, for instance, the Public Service Commission's State of the Public Service Report for 2010 focused on integration, co-ordination and effective Public Service delivery. Its evaluation sample is too narrow in the sense that it focused only on government departments and on a specific theme, instead of dealing with all the variables relating to all the values and principles, as detailed in the Constitution. Another example is the Public Service Commission's State of the Public Service Report 2009, which focused on the state of readiness of the public service for 2010 and beyond.
On the basis of this, and in line with section 196(4) of the Constitution, the committee recommends the following: The Public Service Commission should report every year on the implementation of section 195 of the Constitution by the administration of all spheres of government, organs of state and public enterprises in South Africa; the report of the Public Service Commission should be contained in the annual report of the entity that the Public Service Commission is reporting on every year, for the purpose of consistency, comparability, monitoring, evaluation and oversight against implementation of section 195(1) of the Constitution; the NA seeks to locate the budget of the Public Service Commission with Parliament's Budget Vote in order to preserve the Public Service Commission's independence from the executive and allow for the Public Service's reporting budget to be aligned. As hon members will know, it used to be a standalone budget vote but it was collapsed for some reason. We recommend the recognition of that independence by giving it a standalone budget, as before.
The Speaker of the National Assembly - and this is much more important - should in future refer the Public Service Commission's reports to committees for consideration and report. This will allow for the NA to mandatorily and critically contribute to the reporting style of the Public Service Commission and allow for the Public Service Commission's information, reported to the NA, to contribute to parliamentary oversight.
The Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, in this instance, presents these recommendations regarding the Public Service Commission State of the Public Service Report 2010 to the NA for consideration and adoption.
There was no debate.