House Chairperson, members, in its 2009 election manifesto, the ANC stated boldly that fighting crime and fighting the causes of crime will be a priority of the ANC government in the next five years. Therefore, it is appropriate that the very first Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, report tabled in the House today deals with service delivery at police stations and police 10111 call centres.
This police audit is a performance audit as opposed to what can be called compliance audits. Compliance audits are mainly concerned with ensuring that the rands and cents of expenditure add up and that laws such as the Public Finance Management Act are adhered to. Performance audits, on the other hand, go further and assess whether there is value for money. As departments and entities hopefully and increasingly meet compliance criteria, we are likely to see more value-for-money performance audits.
It could be useful, therefore, as this police audit is the first to be dealt with by Scopa, to identify any lessons we have learned in our engagement with the department and apply such lessons to future engagements between Scopa and departments. I would suggest that there are three lessons we learned in our engagement with the Police department which we can usefully apply to future interrogations of audit reports: Firstly, and this is a lesson for Scopa, members of Scopa may be clear and specific on what it is that departments must answer to; but we must ensure that departments are also quite clear on what is required of them. At our first meeting with the police in July, we seemed to be speaking at cross purposes. The result was that the hearing had to be abandoned. Scopa needs to seriously consider supplying the department and entities that appear before it with a predetermined set of key questions, in particular those matters that require detailed responses.
Secondly, and this is a lesson for departments, departments need to have read and understood the Auditor-General's report and be as thoroughly prepared as Scopa to engage on the report. This might sound very obvious, but in all the hearings we had this year, it has been apparent that either the Auditor-General's report has not been understood or there has been a lack of preparation.
The audit report makes specific findings. Departments need to be ready to give reasons for shortcomings and the remedial actions that have been taken in those regards. Perhaps we need to recirculate to departments our very useful little booklet published by Scopa in 2003 titled Guidelines for Accounting Officers, Ministers and Other Persons Appearing before the Committee. The booklet sets out very succinctly Scopa's mandate and role, its procedures and what is required of accounting officers and others appearing before it. The key to what is expected of accounting officers is contained on page 15, section 3 of the handbook. Accounting officers called to give evidence before Scopa will be expected to furnish Scopa with explanations with regard to any irregularities or problems to which their attention has been drawn by the Auditor-General in the audited financial statements of the relevant department and any other matter identified by Scopa.
It is probably this "any other matter identified by Scopa" which could be the cause of our difficulty in the hearing with the police. In fact, in all of the hearings we had this year, officials may have been unprepared for these "other matters". Therefore, my earlier suggestion that these "other matters" be formulated in specific questions and be communicated to officials before the hearing applies in this regard.
Thirdly, there is also a lesson for Ministries and portfolio committees. After our unsuccessful hearing with the police, the Minister and the Deputy Minister and the chairperson of the portfolio committee intervened to ensure that the issues raised in the Auditor-General's report and subsequently by Scopa were properly addressed.
The role of relevant portfolio committees in matters brought before Scopa is especially important. This will be more so in the case of performance audits. We must ensure that the portfolio committees play a more active role in discussions around audit reports, which needs to go beyond merely inviting the chairs of the portfolio committee to attend Scopa hearings. Portfolio committees, after all, have overall oversight responsibility for relevant departments on an ongoing basis. Therefore, there needs to be a closer working relationship between Scopa and portfolio committees from the very first briefing by the Auditor-General to the formulation of recommendations to be considered by the House. These are some of the lessons we can apply going forward.
In the few minutes remaining, I want to deal with a finding in the Auditor- General's report that there was a lack of an approved policy for sector policing. My colleagues speaking in the debate will deal with a number of other key findings made by the Auditor-General, and listed in the report tabled today.
Sector policing is a major tool in the fight against crime. It is an approach to policing where services of an area of a police station are divided into smaller manageable areas known as sectors. Resources are allocated according to the sectors' crime trends. The sector commander and the community become active partners in ensuring local safety and security.
At a hearing with the police on 1 July, this became a major issue of concern. It became apparent that members of the police delegation themselves disagreed as to whether there was policy or not. They gave contradictory replies to questions and the committee was left in the dark as to whether there was policy and whether it was being implemented. To the credit of the Minister, Deputy Minister and the chairperson of the portfolio committee who almost immediately intervened in the matter, the important issue of sector policing has been clarified, together with other matters, in a comprehensive document from the police.
The committee was informed that national instructions on sector policing were approved on 13 July and had already been circulated to all provincial and station commissioners. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts was also informed that the policy on sector policing will be implemented and rolled out to all 1 116 police stations within the next three years. We were also informed that a monitoring mechanism for the implementation of sector policing has been developed. This monitoring mechanism will be implemented at all levels in the police force, from national to station level. An important aspect of compliance with sector policing is that performance agreements for provincial commissioners and operational plans for station commissioners include indicators according to which they will be assessed.
In conclusion, I can do no better than to quote from Deputy President Motlanthe in giving a keynote address at the annual Association of Public Accounts Committees, Apac, conference in Cape Town on 28 September 2009 when he said:
It is crucial that public accounts committees do not only react to bad management and corruption but also assist in ensuring that financial affairs are managed properly. Public accounts committees must scrutinise problem areas within departments and public entities, and propose corrective action and changes where required.
I believe that the report Scopa tabled before you today is testimony to the fact that we have diligently executed the Deputy President's instructions. [Interjections.] [Time expired.] [Applause.]