State of the Public Service Report 2006

1. State of the Public Service Report 2006 Girding the Public Service with the appropriate capacity for effective service delivery and adherence to the Constitution

2. Presentation outline • Background and purpose • Methodology • SOPS 2006 • Conclusion

3. Background and purpose of the SOPS Reports • The SOPS reports provide a high-level overview of the state of the Public Service. • The reports serve as an annual evaluative commentary on the Public Service's adherence to the good governance values enshrined in the Constitution. • The 2004 report was retrospective and provided a 10-year overview of the Public Service since democracy. The 2005 report was forward looking and presented a vision for the 2nd decade of democracy. • The 2006 edition looks at the capacity of the Public Service to deliver on the development objectives of Government.

4. Methodology • SOPS Reports draw on the vast amount of oversight work undertaken by the Public Service Commission (PSC). This is augmented by other appropriate research on public administration. • The research is organised and presented according to the 9 Constitutional values and principles of public administration.

5. SOPS 2006 • For each of the 9 values and principles, SOPS 2006 looks at: - Capacity in the context of the value/principle - Overview of recent research/initiatives - Capacity considerations for the challenges ahead • While acknowledging the multifaceted nature of the concept of capacity, the report emphasises the importance of human resource capability.

6. Principle 1: A high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained • Capacity to maintain a high standard of ethics is key to the credibility, integrity and efficacy of the Public Service. • The Public Service has generally responded well to demands for transparent government. Comprehensive legislation and regulations have been put in place. • Through the NACF there is a collective approach to fighting corruption involving government, civil society and business. • It is of concern that 30% of Senior Managers failed to declare their financial interests (February 2006). The PSC considers a 100% rate to be the only satisfactory benchmark. • More commitment from Executive Authorities and Heads of Departments is required to ensure compliance. • The culture of whistle-blowing needs to be instilled.

7. Principle 1 continued • The National Anti-Corruption Hotline promotes theperception of visible action by government against corruption, as reports are lodged and follow-up is made. • The system has thus far referred 1 388 cases of alleged corruption and 608 cases of poorservice delivery to departments for further investigation and reporting. • The integrity of the system depends on how well feedback is provided. This is currently unsatisfactory. • In terms of financial misconduct, reports reflect a substantial decrease (55%) in fraud and theft cases. It is of concern that most of these cases occur at the supervisory levels of 6 and 7.

8. Principle 1: Capacity Considerations • The capacity to promote and ensure a high standard of professional ethics must continue to be developed. • Early warning systems and the investigative capacity to deal with corrupt practices must be developed. • Departments need to strengthen their capacity to process cases of financial misconduct within the timeframes set by regulations. • The use of the NACH must be increased, as it provides a good barometer of the ethical awareness, pointing to areas of managerial deficiencies. • There is a need to establish a comprehensive framework to manage conflicts of interest. The PSC has already completed a report in this regard.

9. Principle 2: Efficient, economic and effective use of resources must be promoted • The Public Service requires the capacity to strategically deploy, manage and utilise resources in an efficient, effective and economic manner. • The basis for systematic planning and better financial management has been laid by the PFMA, 2000. Capacity to comply with the requirements of this Act is critical. • The A-G has found that 61% of departments failed to align their strategic plans, annual and financial reports, or meet the time-lines set out in their Business Plans.

10. Principle 2 continued • There has been a decrease in unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure (R142,1 m in 2003/4 to R83,8m in 2004/5). • However these amounts are still significant in the context of a Public Service that promotes efficiency and effectiveness. • Financial controls such as internal audit units and audit committees are not functioning optimally. • It is encouraging that attention is being paid to building the capacity to monitor effectiveness through a Government-Wide Monitoring and Evaluation System. • The prescribed reporting format for annual reports provides a mechanism to assess how well departments deliver and spend their resources. It is however of concern that in a study by National Treasury, it was found that a number of departments failed to meet their obligations to table their reports in the legislatures by 30 September.

11. Principle 2: Capacity Considerations • There is a need to strengthen the capacity of the Public Service around strategic planning, financial management and reporting. • Annual reports should begin to reflect a coherent link between plans and outputs, as reflected in the Estimates of National Expenditure. • Current efforts to improve financial management capacity should be intensified. This becomes more critical in light of support to be given to local government.

12. Principle 3: Public administration must be development oriented • The Public Service needs the capacity to formulate and enact policies that target the development priorities of government and contribute decisively to poverty reduction. • A strong foundation was laid in the first decade of democracy, through restructuring the economy and integrating it into the global economy. • This foundation has created a basis for increased social spending. • Social assistance and social security has increased from R10 billion in 1994 to R70 billion in 2006, and from 2,6 to 10 million beneficiaries respectively. • These grants contribute more than half of the income of the poorest 20 percent of households. They have doubled in real terms over the past 5 years and has led to significant improvement in child nutrition, thus improving cognitive ability and school outcomes.

13. Principle 3 continued • The Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) play a strategic role in addressing some of the infrastructure, healthcare and service delivery needs of Government. Managing these poses a challenge. • An audit of poverty initiatives shows that there are diverse initiatives and interventions, relating to income poverty (grants), human capital poverty (education) and asset poverty (land reform). Collectively these have contributed towards the improvement of the quality of life of the citizens. • More needs to be done to improve the planning, management and integration of development projects. • A more collaborative approach (as opposed to a silo approach) is necessary to harmonize capacity throughout the three tiers of government.

14. Principle 3: Capacity Considerations • Service delivery should improve once the unified Public Service is operationalised. • Poverty reduction efforts need to be integrated so at to optimise their impact. • These efforts should also strike a balance between transfer payments and self-sustainability.

15. Principle 4: Services must be provided impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias • Central to this principle is a commitment to Just Service Delivery. • Capacity for Just Service Delivery is key to redressing the legacy of the past and legitimising public administration. • The necessary legal, normative and regulatory framework to address the legacy of the past is in place to ensure that services are delivered in a manner that is impartial, fair, equitable and without bias.

16. Principle 4 continued • The Promotion of the Administrative Justice Act, PAJA of 2000 is central to achieving fairness, as it helps define what constitutes lawful administration and what does not. • Adherence to the PAJA is still highly unsatisfactory. There are low levels of awareness, inadequate opportunities for representations and delays in the processing of requests. • A study on Community Crime Prevention initiatives showed that although these have made good progress, resources for such work continue to be skewed disfavourably towards black communities.

17. Principle 4: Capacity Considerations • Departments need to improve communication procedures so as to communicate their decisions more comprehensively. • They also need to institutionalize the requirements of PAJA into their management processes.

18. Principle 5: People's needs must be responded to and the public must be encouraged to participate in policy-making • The Public Service must have the capacity to promote participatory governance in order to match the policies and programmes of Government with the needs of the people. • The Izimbizo programme has encouraged public participation and needs to be integrated systematically into the work of the Public Service. • Mechanisms have been used to promote participatory governance in schools and crime prevention.

19. Principle 5 continued • Initiatives by the South African Police Services (SAPS) in community crime prevention initiatives have generally received community support. • Factors such as resource limitations and the capacity of stakeholders to understand the strategies has undermined efforts to be fully effective. • Citizens Forums and Citizen Satisfaction Surveys have also proved to be effective mechanisms through which to involve citizens. • Findings from a Citizens Satisfaction Survey focusing on selected services of the Departments of Agriculture, Land Affairs, and Water Affairs and Forestry indicate that the satisfaction levels of citizens range between 62% and 81%. • The main concerns raised by citizens in the study, related to turnaround times and the number of staff available to attend to them.

20. Principle 5: Capacity Considerations • Involving the public in policy making is critical for the stability of our democracy. • The capacity for this in the Public Service is sporadic and rudimentary. • Capacity must be built to monitor the effectiveness of systems for public participation to ensure that break downs in these are pre-empted.

21. Principle 6: Public administration must be accountable • The developmental state requires a commitment to accountability since public institutions have been delegated important management and regulatory powers. • Accountability implies that public servants should be held answerable to government and the public for the achievement of service delivery objectives and the proper utilisation of resources. • Essential for this is the capacity to account in the various ways set by legislation and regulatory prescripts.

22. Principle 6 continued • External accountability has been facilitated through stakeholders such as the Parliamentary Portfolio Committees and obligations posed by the Annual reports and work of the Auditor-General. • The Auditor-General's Audit Outcomes Report for the year ending March 2005 has shown a decrease from 11 to 7 of national departments that received qualified audits. • Of concern is that there has been an increase in the number of matters emphasised from 150 in 2002/3 to over 300 in 2004/5. • A 23% increase in over expenditure – from 30,2 million to 37,4 million, has occurred at the National level.

23. Principle 6 continued • The number of national departments that received qualified audit opinions for consecutive years rose from five (2003/4) to seven (2004/2005). • Qualified audit opinions across the Departments of Education, Health and Social Development are commonly found in most of the 9 provinces. • This is of concern given that these departments normally receive the largest share of the budget and are also at the core of the poverty reduction programmes of government.

24. Principle 6 continued • The PSC continues to play its role in facilitating the evaluation of the performance of Heads of Department (HoDs). In the 2003/4 period, only 46% of HoDs were evaluated countrywide. This is a sharp decrease from the 2002/3 financial years. • Performance Agreements between the EA and HODs are at the heart of the HoD evaluations. There has been an uneven rate of submission of these, which raises concern about the capacity to contract for performance.

25. Principle 6: Capacity Considerations • The accountability that is fostered through the HOD evaluation process must permeate the entire organisation. • Performance management systems must be put in place with their application mainstreamed into the work of the departments and not done occasionally for compliance purposes. • Capacity needs to be developed to address recurring weaknesses identified in the reports of the Auditor-General.

26. Principle 7: Transparency must be fostered by providing the public with timely, accurate and accessible information • For the citizenry to enjoy their right to transparent government, the Public Service must have the capacity to open itself to public scrutiny. • Promotion of Access to Information Act and the Promotion of the Administrative Justice Act are the cornerstones of transparency. • The capacity of the Public Service to implement them is therefore important.

27. Principle 7 continued • An analysis of Annual Reports shows that reporting still largely focuses on activities. There is also lack of reporting on reasons for non-performance against planned objectives. • The Government wide M&E System should further foster transparency as it puts pressure on departments to improve upon their own M&E systems. • An audit conducted by the PSC on departmental reporting and M&E systems shows that M&E systems are not incorporated into the overall strategy of departments. • A study by the Open Democracy Advice Centre conducted across 14 countries tested responsiveness of government to information requests.

28. Principle 7 continued • SA falls behind the international average for obligatory responses of 14 days (the legal requirement is 30 days). Even with this, only 13% of queries lodged were actually responded to in time, in comparison to the 25% internationally. • The results indicate that a lot more effort must be made to build capacity to actually implement PAIA.

29. Principle 7: Capacity Considerations • The responsiveness by the Public Service at the level of the Public Service-Citizen Interface must be improved. • To strengthen transparency, M&E must be given more priority by departments.

30. Principle 8: Good human resource management and career development practices, to maximise human potential, must be cultivated • The ability of the Public Service to achieve its objectives depends critically on Human resource capacity. • Leadership and managerial capacity is required to catalyze, sustain and manage change, as well as cultural diversity. • To maximise human potential areas such as recruitment and selection, performance management, human resource planning, the challenge of HIV/AIDS and employment equity must be addressed.

31. Principle 8 continued • Inappropriate recruitment decisions undermine the credibility of the Public Service as an employer committed to objective and transparent recruitment practices. • Most departments lack procedures on recruitment and selection resulting in flawed processes. • Political office bearers sometimes deviate from the recommendations of the selection panels without recording their reasons. This can be perceived as undue influence. • The manner in which departments conduct performance management remains a problem (forming 52% of grievances lodged).

32. Principle 8 continued • There is still insufficient compliance with the new Grievances Rules, relating to the non-adherence to timeframes and the premature referral of grievances for consideration by the PSC. • The PSC handled 431 grievances compared to 392 last year (9.9% increase). This may be attributed to the new grievance rules, which have stringent time frames. • The role of the labour relations officers is often not understood, and labour relations officers often perform functions that are within the domain of line managers.

33. Principle 8 continued • Workplace management of HIV/AIDS is important and could compromise service delivery. A policy framework for HIV/AIDS in the Public Service is in place. Preliminary findings of our research indicate that while HIV/AIDS Committees are in place, there is a lack of programmes targetting HIV/AIDS (including counselling and support).

34. Principle 8: Capacity considerations • Maximising human potential through sound human resource management requires a sound understanding of human resource management issues, the complex environment within which people operate and a willingness to adapt to change. • There must be a more proactive approach in implementing the HIV/AIDS framework and ensuring that effective HIV/AIDS related health and counselling infrastructure is in place. • Given the centrality of recruitment and selection in creating capacity within the Public Service, the most suitable persons must be employed. • The Public Service should be viewed as an employer of choice.

35. Principle 9: Public administration must be broadly representative of the SA people…… • The effects of discriminatory exclusion have resulted in difficulties by designated groups that compete for employment in certain occupational categories. • The necessary legislative framework is in place but its effectiveness is best tested against application. • Implementing affirmative action is fraught with tensions and care is required for implementing standards objectively in a situation of open competition.

36. Principle 9 continued • A comprehensive review of Affirmative Action in the Public Service completed in 2005 shows that overall numeric targets for race have been met. • The progress for female representativity was 27% at the national level and 26% at the provincial level, short of the 30% target set. • The current progress of 0,16% for persons with disabilities falls short of the 2% target for this group. • Gender equity in the workplace is important and questions of capacity are critical for women to fulfill their roles as leaders in the Public Service. • The current work on gender mainstreaming initiatives across Government should assist in identifying the barriers that may contribute to the inequalities that women are faced with in the Public Service.

37. Principle 9 : Capacity Considerations • Statistics continue to show that while the Public Service has made progress in achieving numeric targets for employment equity, women still need to be better represented at leadership levels and that people with disabilities are still underrepresented. • Increased representivity in the Public Service should translate into increased delivery capacity as issues such as language and cultural sensitivity are addressed. • More work needs to be done for designated groups around induction, training, mentorship and performance management.

38. Conclusion • Addressing the capacity challenge in the Public Service requires dedicated leadership from the Executive and Senior management levels. This requires a capacity to build on existing legislative, normative and regulatory frameworks. • The report indicates that significant progress has been made. However, more needs to be done to ensure higher levels of responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency. • To ensure that there is a clear line of sight throughout the Public Service, consistent and integrated monitoring and evaluation systems must be put in place. • The PSC will continue to monitor the performance of the South African Public Service and through its reporting generate a broader discussion and debate in the service delivery discourse.

39. Conclusion continued • The report will be presented to a number of stakeholders to ensure wider discussion of its findings and recommendations. • At the same time, the PSC will be collecting and analyzing information for its 2006/7 oversight cycle on the state of the Public Service. • Accordingly, themes for framing the next SOPS report are being explored. • Currently under consideration is a theme that looks at the role of the Public Service in the promotion of growth and development. • The theme would involve an assessment of how adherence to the nine Constitutional values and principles enables the Public Service to promote growth and development.

40. Thank you!