17 May 2001
The challenge for the public service since 1994 has been to change in a way that allows this powerful machinery available to government to be able to meet some of the service delivery challenges. The services delivered by government employees, to a large extent form the last line of defence for the majority of our people against poverty, hunger, disease, crime and for many constitute the only real opportunity for growth and development. To that extent, for example, our teachers should be an example to our children, build on each child's strength, helping them towards achieving their full potential and maximising their capacity to meet the demands and challenges of today's world. Our police service should aim to achieve the trust and respect of the public so that all our people may turn with confidence to them for protection when threatened. The public service needs to learn to work in a way that embodies our democratic ideals. They should see the people as partners in delivery - not as the enemy, not as competition, not as passive recipients.
The public service is by no means the only vehicle for service delivery and should not be elevated to that position. Without detracting from government's responsibility to provide basic services to the poor, we should never allow our people to slip into a false expectation that will trap them into a dependency arrangement vis-à-vis the government. Our whole approach to government has been one of a democratic and developmental state. At the heart of it is the empowered citizen that understands its own responsibility - to itself and to the country - to take action to make change happen, each according to his her own situation. Without this initiative on the side of our people, we will not be able to make progress in the battle against poverty and deprivation, nor will we succeed to change the public service from a self-serving, self-indulging, unreformed creature, to a powerful machinery committed to remove the injustices of the past in a manner that befits the culture that we want to create in our young democracy.
After seven years in office we have learnt by now that the public service does not change easily. Indeed this is true for all countries that are busy with public service transformation. Institutional change requires massive investment in transforming systems, culture and operational environment coupled with systemic changes in values and behaviour of public servants. The sheer scale of the public service and traditions embedded over centuries make the change process a more complex and involved process. One of the key skills that are required by those leading the change process, is the wisdom to distinguish what needs to be changed, and what should be left intact, and what needs to be changed at what time - because there is a sequencing involved in large scale change. Clearly the democratic change and the commensurate changes in policy was change long overdue. The people of our country gave a clear indication to this effect.
The other characteristic distinguishing those who succeeds at change and those who fail, is shear, dogged determination and perseverance. It is only those who stick to the bigger game plan and the agreed strategy, those who take the time to do the necessary preparation in terms of the more mundane and those who find ways of working their way through or around obstacles that will over a period of time be able to reap the rewards. Those who keeps on changing their strategy in a fundamental way, those who keeps on changing direction and that looses their sight on the final outcome, gets lost in the maze of complexity, never actually arriving at the final destination.
We need to keep the perspective that we will only see the full benefits of what we have been doing during the past five years, in ten to fifteen years' time. In the meantime we will have to cultivate the wisdom to resist the temptation of short-cut crucial activities in order to have demonstrable wins - but which could proof to be unsustainable.
Given the complexities and long-term nature of public service transformation, to ensure that the change process is responsive to the demands of people-centred development and that energy for it is sustained for the long haul, it is imperative that the change process itself is not limited to bureaucrats. It should be informed by the people, and the people should provide the energy and the encouragement to the public servants to truly change.
It follows then that in an open and participatory democracy a society gets the public service that it deserves. If society does not make it abundantly clear that we are seeking more and better services delivered in a more accountable, transparent and approachable manner, and through more innovative means of delivery, the inclination of public servants will be to continue performing in a manner that is not appropriate in this political dispensation. This is why we have created more opportunities for societal participation in governance processes, such as community policing forums and school governing bodies. In line with the idea of extending democratic governance further we are arguing for further opening up opportunity for participation to include a more active role by the population and its organised formations in oversight, monitoring and in our anti-corruption work.
From government's side, the team under my budget, these are the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), the Office of the Public Service Commission (OPSC), the South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) are collectively charged with transforming the public service to work in an improved manner - more effectively, more efficiently, but also more transparently, more inclusive and in a more sustainable manner.
Bearing this in mind, as well as the challenges posed in the President's State of the Nation address in February this year, I have decided to coin a catch phrase that we can use in our effort to mobilise our collective forces in the interest of public service transformation, and to release the necessary energy for delivery to happen. This catchphrase is "Change for Action - Action for Change".
Last year, in my speech, I touched on various priorities facing the public service. I see this budget vote as an opportunity to publicly account for what we have managed to achieve and what the outstanding challenges are. I want to state up front that this report is not earthshattering. We are still in the phase of setting in place the fundamentals that will show result over time. My portfolio has identified the period of 2000 to 2003 as a period of consolidation, after the public service were subject to a large number of new policy initiatives in the period preceding 2000. We have said that this is the period that we will give to departments responsible for implementing our policies to catch up and really inculcate the policies in their methods of work. We have said to ourselves that this is the period in which we will fine-tune our work, work through the initial round of policy problems, give assistance where required and review and adjust policy - but resisting to fundamentally change the policy framework. We believe that the bulk of policy work that will result into fundamental changes have been dealt with for the time being. In terms of policy-making we have entered a period of consolidation, and we can anticipate the continuation of the existing policy frameworks over the next couple of year. However, in terms of operationalising and implementing, we are working at changing, always endeavouring to improve - to work better, smarter, faster in order to achieve results!
The fact that we do not plan to make fundamental policy changes in the foreseeable future does not exonerate the leadership from keeping a perpetual eye on changing circumstances, and responding to such. Sometimes this will mean while we continue to pursue the overall goal that we have to take some risks in exploring the frontiers that are unbeknown to us. It also means that occasions will arise in which we have to make trade-offs in the short term, in order to ensure long term successes. This is what leadership is about, and we should be given this space to fulfil this role to the best of our collective ability.
The team that I lead has grappled and engaged with change and transformation processes of their own during the reporting period. Not only are they having to facilitate the transformation of the entire system, they themselves have had to undergo restructuring, focus aims and objectives anew, adjust staffing according to priority requirements and critically review work processes. All of these were done with the aim of ensuring that we practice what we preach, that we become model organizations, capable of leading and facilitating change. I am, however, happy to report that we have moved to a phase where the bulk of our attention can be applied to issues external to these organisations, thereby giving more attention to the daunting challenge of transforming the public service. To this extent, we have coined a slogan, 'we serve the people who serve the people'
I would now like to report on some of the key issues we raised in our last budget speech:
THE CHANGING PROFILE OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE:
Reporting on the changing profile of the public service serves as a vivid indicator of public service transformation. Analysing the profile allows us to comment on the changing size of the public sector and the respective human resource allocations between national and provinces and between various sectors, indirectly commenting on government priorities. Certain aspects of the profile also serves as an early warning system, highlighting potential challenges that will have an impact on motivation, expertise and efficacy of the work force and management, and which eventually will impact on the ability of government to deliver against its policy objectives.
The facts at a glance are:
The downward change in personnel numbers reflect greater consciousness amongst managers to match staffing to service delivery requirements. Although progress has been made with overall representivity, the challenge remains within middle management, reflecting a greater need to focus on human resource planning. However, the battle for transforming gender relations seems to be stuck. Meeting the targets for women in managerial appointments are lagging with approximately 10 per cent. Sectorally the division of labour is also quite clear, with women largely concentrated in the social services sectors. All sectors, with the exception of the core/ regulatory sector (constituted by departments such as the Presidency, Treasury, Provincial and Local Government, and the departments under my portfolio) show a degree of recalcitrance in changing the gender profile of their respective employee profiles. Each department is essentially responsible for meeting its own gender targets. The Equity Plans that departments have to submit in terms of current labour legislation will be used by my departments to track the progress with transformation on this key dimension. Improved Vulindlela HR quarterly reports already put us in a position to identify individual departments and sectors that are slow in appointing and promoting women. Soon we will be in a position to monitor progress against development plans, and we will start identifying departments and their leadership by name that do not meet their set targets. SAMDI has also identified the need to develop curriculum that will specifically aid the fast-tracking women managers.
The management cadre of the South African public service remains alarmingly small compared to a very broad base of production level, skilled workers and lower skilled workers (especially in the infrastructure and economic sectors). The figures show a very slight shrinkage of the lower skilled levels in favour of the production levels. This profile is very different from countries that more recently are regarded as big success stories in public management, such as Malaysia, Singapore, etc. In these instances the professional and senior management cadres is pushing the sixty per cent mark, compared to the production, skilled and lower skilled levels, constituting an upside-down pyramid if compared with the South African one.
Management only constitutes 0,4% of the entire public service. To aggravate the managerial situation even further, the distribution of senior managers is skewed between the national departments (more policy oriented) and provincial departments (closer to the actual service delivery level). Whereas approximately 70 per cent of public servants are operating at the provincial level, only 40 per cent of senior management are deployed in the provinces. This points to a systemic problem in granting service delivery institutions adequate managerial capacity.
Traditionally we have looked in a very narrow way at the public service, being constituted by national and provincial departments of which there are a total of 156. Increasingly it is becoming clear, however, that if we want to understand service delivery we have to look at very complex networks of service delivery institutions. The complexity in this range of organisations is fed, amongst others, through an explosion in the number of public entities.
The PFMA currently lists 201 Public Entities. A recent study conducted by the DPSA shows this as excluding a significant number of entities that are very similar. This study concludes that there are more than 350 Public Entities in the South African public sector. This number includes subsidiary institutions under the control of recognised Public Entities. Most of these Public Entities were established in the last six years. Public Entities employs close to 290 000 staff, constituting over 25 per cent of the size of the public sector. The demographic profile of the staff of these institutions are not monitored in any central manner, we are therefore unable to comment on how this may be reflective of transformational objectives.
A significant part of all public services are delivered through local authorities. Increasingly partnerships between government and the hundred thousand odd civil society organisations that exists also constitute an important part of the service delivery web that we exclude in our current conceptualisation of the profile of the public service, but that are of crucial importance in succeeding at service delivery.
One of the key challenges for the next year is for us to develop a better understanding of these partners in service delivery, what their capacity is and how to optimalise the relationship between the public service and them. To this effect DPSA has identified a project to start mapping out service delivery chains. Cabinet has also approved the development of a policy framework that will achieve greater harmony between the situations of the public entities and those of the public service proper. The challenge in this regard would be to manage the paradox between agency autonomy and standardisation for increased efficiency and better co-ordination.
RESTRUCTURING AND AGREEING ON A NEW WAGE POLICY
We have managed to move our relationship with the public service labour unions to a new plane during the year of reporting. In January this year we held a Public Service Job Summit and for the first time entered into a series of broad discussion with the unions, going beyond the narrow focus on negotiations and issues of conditions of service. We discussed issues related to restructuring of the public service within the broader economic and social framework, HIV/AIDS and measures to efficiently extend service delivery to citizens. The outcome was a remarkable framework agreement that sets the stage for further constructive engagement between the state as employer and the employee parties on the issue of transformation and restructuring of the Public Service.
The framework agreement is in line with and consistent to the objectives we outlined in last budget speech. In addition to the need for ensuring that personnel expenditure does not crowd out investment expenditure , we have argued for the development of a labour relations framework suitable the public sector, underpinned by the need to match personnel deployment with service delivery requirements. Although retrenchments will be inevitable in certain sections, the emphasis is now on the sustainable management of the wage bill through medium term human resource and expenditure planning. Encouraged by the agreement of the Job Summit and a renewed sense of partnership with our unions, we intend proposing that we move towards 3-year wage agreements that are in line with the MTEF/MTSF planning cycle of government. Shifting to such 3-year wage agreements is undoubtedly one of our most significant contributions to ensuring that we get a handle on our personnel expenditure in a sustainable manner, avoiding responding continually to ad hoc restructuring impulses on the basis of financial constraints. It strengthens our ability to predict and reduces uncertainty in the decision-frameworks.
HIV/AIDS AND POVERTY
There are two key issues which I believe impact on every aspect of the public service, both from the perspective of the Public Service as an employer body, and as a service provider. These are poverty and HIV/AIDS. We are only too aware the depth of poverty in our country impacts on public servants personally and in terms of the services required from them. Where HIV/AIDS is added to these complexities, it become increasingly critical that we transform and improve our services while at the same time providing a supportive and developmental environment for the service providers. HIV/AIDS and poverty are interrelated, just as I believe that the services we offer cannot be separated from the service providers. Indeed, the quality of service we offer is directly related to the quality and skill of our service providers. Thus, as we in the MPSA 'serve those who serve the others', these two issues of HIV/AIDS and poverty must inevitably run as cross cutting themes through all our thinking, planning and policy development - challenging us, but never daunting us.
During the course of this past year we have completed research identifying the projected impact that HIV/AIDS will have across the Public Service. The study done by the DPSA in conjunction with specialists in this field was specifically orientated from the perspective of Government being the employer of 1 million public servants. The focus was thus on impacts likely to occur on service benefits; on human resource planning, development and management; and on the issues for policy and governance broadly across the Public Service, as well as the need for more consciousness amongst our employees.
This analysis (together with studies done by Health and Education) is an important first step in ensuring that Government is in a position to effectively plan for and mitigate the impacts of HIV/AIDS likely to occur within all spheres of the Public Service. We are reminded through the study that:
As managers in particular will be faced with the serious and additional pressures and challenges placed on them by the impact of HIV/AIDS, we will be producing a comprehensive tool to provide them with the knowledge and skill for the effective management of impacts. This tool will include a workplace policy and programme framework, together with minimum standards which will service as an implementation guide line. The framework will include a set of principles and will focus on such issues as human resource development, human resource management, peer counseling and support services for public servants and their families, training in HIV/AIDS, universal precautions and workplace safety, and prevention and educational measures and programmes.
Furthermore the DPSA will develop a quality assurance tool and procedure to provide both the support and the monitoring necessary to 'breathe life' into and maintain the policy and minimum standards. The framework will ensure some measure of consistency in addressing HIV/AIDS within Public Service workplaces and will at the same time provide a guide for the necessary development of the sector and situation-specific programmes. Direct work on the new framework and minimum standards has commenced this month and will be taken forward by a special technical task team set up for this purpose. A draft should be ready for circulation by the end of July 2001.
In addition to the policy tool for the workplace, it is intended that the impact of HIV/AIDS on medical aids and pensions will be more deeply explored and the costing thereof completed, so that government can take necessary steps to address this holistically. Finally, it is intended that we work in partnership with all in the Public Service to improve on prevention strategies and programmes for Public Servants and their families.
While HIV/AIDS in the public service is indeed a significant challenge, the early identification of potential impacts and the tools and programmes we intend will be in place, together with a co-operative and integrated approach through all spheres of the public service, should contribute significantly to us being able to sustain an effective service delivery in spite of HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, our public servants will experience the level of support and respect for their rights which I believe is critical to breaking down the damaging barrier of stigma and discrimination.
SUPPORT TO DEPARTMENTS
Although we are largely responsible for policy-making and monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation, in addition we are also committed to supporting the development of institutional capacity for service delivery. Wherever feasible, DPSA, SITA, OPSC and SAMDI co-operate in such ventures, each handling the issue from their unique position of strength.
One such venture was Project Tiro - a project where we worked with management of the Department of Home Affairs in repositioning the department to offer improved services to the public in line with the Batho Pele principles. The joint team that was dedicated to working together with the Department's management team in getting an appropriate change management process on track - after having been full-time involved for almost a year in the Department of Home Affairs - will now phase out, but continue to monitor progress from the outside and provide assistance where needed.
On a national level, we have worked with departments such as the Department of Public Works, Justice, Welfare and Correctional Services. Our work with the Public Works Department is linked to efforts to transform the current dispensation into a reputable and effective property management agency, details of which were announced by the Minister of Public Works in her budget speech last week.
The national departments are, however, just one of our focus areas of intervention. The provinces, and particularly service delivery institutions on the provincial level is becoming increasingly important in our work. The bulk of our support work is with provinces, where 70% of public servants are located.
The Integrated Provincial Support Programme (IPSP), now in its second year, has been a phenomenal success. The IPSP was originally focused in the Eastern Cape, Northern and KwaZulu-Natal provinces and is due to be extended to other provinces. Donor organizations such as the British Department for International Development and the German Technical Co-operation Fund have already made commitments in excess of a R100 million over the next three years. This will be complemented by government funds in the form of a Restructuring Fund.
The IPSP thus far has shown the most success in the Northern Province. Restructuring the road construction and maintenance services of the Department of Public Works in this province is showing the way in a very creative manner for us to handle restructuring exercises in a creative and responsible manner. This province is also far advanced with housing a range of government services under a single roof - the so-called One-stop Information Centre idea. These attempts will greatly improve on accessibility of public services and the burden of transport costs for the really poor should be alleviated through such initiatives. Attention is given to upgrading crucial record keeping and archival skills in the province. Issues such as proper personnel records are completely dependent on this aspect, and over the long term it will result in lower personnel expenditure on fraudulent cases. Good progress has also been made in this province on mainstreaming Batho Pele principles in departments, and spot visits are undertaken in order to monitor the implementation thereof. It has recently published its first "Citizens' Report" and could proudly report that "Visible improvements have become noticeable in terms of the times that service delivery institutions are actually open and functioning, when staff is on duty and that children are actually more in the classrooms when they are supposed to be - to mention but a few". However, the more low key process work, that are often tedious, and attract little appreciation, but are fundamentally important to successful programme implementation, is now largely completed in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape and the IPSP is set to move into a stage where much more visible impact could be shown in the areas that were chosen as focus activities, e.g. health in KwaZulu-Natal, welfare payments in the Eastern Cape and in both provinces the strengthening of the Premier's office to play a more constructive role in providing guidance and serve as an important collector of feedback information.
Much progress has also been made to extend the IPSP to the Free State and the Northern Cape. In both instances the key thrusts for projects have been identified and an interim IPSP co-ordinator has been appointed in the Free State.
As part of its mandate, the OPSC undertakes evaluations of major government programmes in order to contribute towards the improvement of performance and service delivery. More recently the following evaluation reports have been completed and published:
The OPSC, however, follows this work up through an active programme of providing support where negative feedback has been given.
The evaluation programme will in the next year include the housing and land reform programme. These evaluations are conducted against set objectives and the extent to which these have been attained.
As alluded to before, a shift in focus has been introduced in our institutional capacity building work this year. Previously the attention was largely on national department or "head offices". Although we argue for sustained attention given to central departments to improve operational systems such as procurement reform, better human resource management through improved HR planning, recruitment, development and retention, information management and monitoring and evaluation, we are now arguing for attention also being given to those institutions directly interfacing with the public. It is by combining top-down, and bottom-up strategies in service delivery improvement that we believe we will achieve the best results over the shortest possible period. Improving management in health institutions will be the focus area for this year's activities. In addition, especially through the general work of the Governance and Administration cluster, we are also keenly looking at ways to assist at the local government level with improvement of systems changes and general capacity development.
We have also become increasingly aware of duplication of efforts, non-sharing of lessons, fragmentation of assistance and the uneven distribution of resources between departments for change initiatives. We are therefore, together with National Treasury, setting out to achieve greater co-ordination in the resources dedicated to transformation processes. By failing to dedicate sufficient resources for transformation through sound budgeting processes, we have ended up with a variety of under-funded and unco-ordinated initiatives, heavily influenced by the donor and consulting communities. We believe that the pooling of funds could become a basis for a co-ordinated and measurable strategic intervention.
MANAGEMENT CAPACITY
We have consistently identified issues around management in the public service as a key impediment to service delivery. As Napoleon reasoned "There are no bad regiments, only bad Colonels" or as someone recently remarked, "our experience of bottlenecks is that they are always at the top". These issues pertain to selection, recruitment and retention, labour relations at the managerial level, ability, professionalism and caliber, - to mention but a few. In order to address these issues, cabinet approved the introduction of a Senior Management System in the second half of 2000. The SMS includes Heads of Departments, senior managers and technical professionals. Under this system a distinction can be made between "managers" and "senior professionals", ensuring more appropriate careerpathing options in both situations, and also resulting in management itself becoming a specialised function.
The machinery of government depends on the capacity and commitment of senior public managers for its effectiveness. They should be the embodiment of a spirit of service delivery, they should be above reproach and they should be absolutely committed to the ideal of a non-racial, non-sexist, developmental and democratic South Africa. The Yugoslav people have a saying, "He who does not know how to serve cannot know how to command" and this is the humility that we want to see coming through the members of our SMS.
Given the fact that the SMS has only been introduced in January it is too early to comment on the success. We will closely monitor indicators centering on retention, increased levels of experience and qualifications. Over the longer term, however, the proof of the success of this initiative will have to come through the monitoring and evaluation of programmes to achieve our overall societal goals.
In the mean time we are proceeding with putting in place the various pillars that supports the SMS. In order to ensure that we appoint the right people to the SMS, a generic competency profile has been developed and will be taken forward for approval to Cabinet in the next cycle of meetings. This will be backed up by a battery of competency tests - both administered by trained individuals, as well as self-testing. This, in combination with stricter checking of qualifications and backgrounds - as undertaken by the OPSC, should result in a substantial improvement on who is to enter the service henceforth. We have moved much closer into operationalising a performance management approach throughout government in the past year. All senior managers (and in some departments this practice has filtered right down) are required to enter into a performance contract with his/her superior, incorporating the general strategic priorities of the individual departments and government as a whole in the key performance areas. This will ensure good alignment between resource allocation and workplans. Tightly managed, these performance agreements allows us to take the necessary corrective and supportive steps of equipping our managers to do their best, but at the same time it provides the necessary basis for taking punitive steps, where necessary, against managers who continually defaults on their performance.
The flip-side of the coin of wanting better performance is obviously that the skills and abilities of managers should be carefully nurtured and developed. For this reason SAMDI has positioned itself strongly to facilitate management training of a quality that is favourable comparable to the best benchmarks available. The organisation's showcase programme during 2000 was obviously the Presidential Strategic Leadership Development Programme (PSLDP), focusing on the development of Directors General and senior managers at a strategic level. In addition to this high-level course SAMDI has successfully trained 11328 delegates between March 2000 and March 2001 in areas such as personnel management, procurement management, project management, human resource management, job evaluation - to mention but a few.
It is anticipated that key programmes linked to competency profiles will become compulsory for all senior managers in the public service. These SMS programmes will incorporate the very important lessons that were learned in the development and roll-out of the Presidential Strategic Leadership Development Programme.
In order to facilitate more effective political-administrative relations a commensurate programme for MECs has also been developed. The aim with this course is to allow MECs to develop their competencies and skills in the principles of management, and strengthen their knowledge on their multiple roles and relationship issues in the system of public administration.
A need has been identified to improve the functioning of ministerial offices and for this purpose a Ministerial Support Staff programme is in the process of being conceptualised and will start running this year.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND E-GOVERNMENT
Information Technology plays a critical role in service delivery and the success of government to provide access of vital information to all its people. With the establishment of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) we started a journey which had the possibility of realising this ideal. This journey has, however, not been an easy one. During its initial period of existence, SITA has been confronted with several challenges, which include, but are not limited to the following:
Against this background it became self-evident that SITA' role in the information technology provision to the state needed to be redefined and redirected. We have come to realise that SITA as an organisation, could not be everything to everyone. The following critical areas as defined by the e-Government strategy were identified for future performance by SITA:
1. Interoperability or the ability of government systems to "talk-to-one another". This will ensure that government departments are able to share information. For example, it can become possible to register births in hospitals or even detect fraud in welfare through sharing databases between SAPS and the welfare system.
2. Information Security, inline with the constitution and the need to protect peoples' right to privacy and information.
3. Eliminating unnecessary duplications. Currently, there are 12 different telecommunications infrastructures, which cost the Government huge amounts of money to maintain;
4. Leveraging economies of scale. Through the purchasing of IT on behalf of Government as a whole, SITA will be able to reduce the costs and offer quality service through negotiating from a position of strength.
This e-Government framework will be achieved through SITA's partnering with the Private Sector under stringent rules and regulations. Through the establishment of an acquisition center and the setting up of guidelines in line with the four principles above, the new SITA will be structures so as to facilitate IT Service delivery rather than build and operate the IT systems of Government. DPSA will establish and re-affirm it shareholder function of this organisation through the issuance of regulations within the next three months.The re-focusing of the organisation, brought about by these changes will complement the performance that SITA has demonstrated since the appointment of Mr Colin van Schalkwyk on 22 November 2000 as MD of the company.
The DPSA e-government strategy will enhance the way in which government departments communicate with each other. For example, we have initiated a process to create a 'Government-to-Government' (G2G) portal - a government wide intranet system. This portal will be the launched later this year. Accessibility to government information will also be increased through the web enablement of various legacy applications, e.g. the Deeds Office, general archives of government, etc. This will ensure that information technology is used to improve the real life experiences of people with the public service.
CHALLENGES THAT WE WILL FOCUS ON FOR THE YEAR
The challenge we face is to translate the skills and commitment of the people we have - both inside and outside of the public service - into operational capacity for service delivery. Our challenge is that we inherited a system in which public sector institutions do not necessarily have the strategic profile to match the requirements of a developmental state. People working in these institutions are not automatically endowed with a spirit or orientation that are favourable to public service and the follow through on a developmental democracy. While we believe that an increasing number of the public servants are operating in a manner that should make the nation proud of them, we still have some that are operating according to the methods of the "old school" and needs re-enforcement and encouragement so that they can change their ways. A small group of our public servants have been overcome with a desire to stuff their own pockets by stealing from and defrauding the people. In order to ensure that all our public servants can be entrusted with the interests of the people they are supposed to serve, it is thus critical that we focus on capacity building and change of attitude as strategic challenges for the public service.
The key strategies that we are putting forward for the year to come, over and above those that are already firmly entrenched in our work plans and that I have dealt with in the report back section is as follows:
A MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE
In my opinion our biggest challenge this year is to get in motion the movement for change as anticipated by the President and to extend this to our public servants. If we can achieve a situation where public servants feel passionately proud about what they are doing, and feel deeply ashamed if they fail in their tasks, if we can achieve a situation where public servants feel that they are a part, and an appreciated part at that, of a body of people that wins the battle against poverty, crime, disease and illiteracy, if we can achieve a situation where the community's sense of self does not allow any service that is second best, and speak out about such treatment, if we can achieve a situation where negative feedback is seen as an opportunity to learn and improve, and not as something to become defensive about, then we will get somewhere.
The Democratic Movement that was so instrumental in this country having achieved democracy for this country, has learnt many lessons in how to mobilise various interest groups and has certainly succeeded in internalising a democratic orientation to much of its approach. The Development Sector in civil society has many innovative ideas on how to address poverty and work with communities that the public service has been notoriously bad to access. The religious community can instill a renewed ethical base in our society. The corporate sector can certainly teach us lessons in becoming much more aware of resources and how to work more efficiently in order to stretch the resources further. The public sector has the reach, systems and resources to scale-up on any implementation effort - far beyond that of the other partners. It is in combination of all our societal forces that we can really move forward on our agenda for change. One of the ways that we can start taking advantage of our rich combination of skills and understanding is to document and share our experiences. We are working hard at it to transform the public service into a learning organisation. But as you know, the boundaries of learning organisations are very porous, and we would keenly encourage the other sectors to share with us in our knowledge networks. The Centre for Public Service Innovation which we will be launching in July this year offers a great opportunity for this, and I will encourage all those with good ideas on public service improvement to watch the press for the Calls of Interest that will be published soon.
The Batho Pele policy remains our single most important campaign to achieve the necessary transformation of the hearts and minds of our public servants. At its core it asks for a democratic and developmental approach. Batho Pele is about putting the citizen at the center of our planning and operations. For this to happen we must ensure that citizens are empowered with information on what services to expect, and knowledge about opportunities for recourse, should they not receive what has been promised. The departments under my portfolio, in collaboration with amongst others GCIS is paying much attention to this matter and an action plan for this year's activities have been developed. One of these activities is aimed at giving public servants from all levels the opportunity to engage directly with senior decision-makers. From 22 June we will conduct a series of national and provincial Imbizos, where members of the Executive can hear first hand about areas where staff and citizens have identified opportunities to make improvements in their work, and that can be effected in the short and medium term. The public stands to benefit from this over a very short space of time. Again we are relying on the co-operation of a variety of players to make this a success.
As part of our continued Batho Pele campaign we will have certain initiatives that concentrate specifically on re-instating pride in our public servants. We will have two periods in the year of rewarding public servants that have been doing well and to showcase activities that qualifies as best practice and innovation in the public service. These occasions will co-incide with Africa Public Service Day on 22 June and during the Public Service Week in the second half of the year. I am calling on my fellow cabinet ministers and on all MECs to take the lead in their respective departments to ensure that they run reward programmes in these periods.
Community structures could also take the opportunity to highlight exemplary behaviour on the part of public servants that they deal directly with. Positive re-enforcement will go a long way in retaining exactly those public servants who have managed to inculcate the service delivery ethos and to distinguish them from the daily barrage of critique against inefficiency and incompetence that is also present in the public service ranks but that gets showcased more often.
I want to take this opportunity to both commend and thank the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration who is contributing in creating the Movement for Change. They have identified their own programme in support of Batho Pele and will play a crucial role in monitoring progress with compliance - in collaboration with the OPSC.
CAPACITY BUILDING
One of the issues to which we will have to give increased, and very urgent attention is the issue of capacity building. Capacity or ability to perform a job is a central factor in getting results and achieving job satisfaction. Since last year, the question "Can the public service deliver against government's programme?" has occupied our collective mind.
One measure we can use to understand whether an institution has adequate capacity to execute its tasks is the extent to which such an institution is dependent on external consultants to undertake tasks that are core to its mission. Models that attempt to establish institutional capacity or ability of governments to succeed quite often look at the degree to which consultants are engaged - either to perform specialist jobs, or more often than not, perform the jobs of regular jobs of public servants who are just not capable of doing this themselves.
The department has just completed a pilot study to be published soon on the use of consultants in our public service, and I would like to share some of these findings with you.
From these findings it is abundantly clear that we have a problem that needs urgent attention on a variety of fronts. These include the following measures:
Public servants that resign or accept voluntary packages are not allowed to work in the public service as consultants within one year after termination of services took place.
The consultancy study as well as a study conducted on behalf of DPSA by the HSRC into scarce skills in the public service, confirms our concern about skills in IT, Financial Management and Project Management/ Policy implementation and policy-making. The skills shortages in these very crucial areas, not necessarily only in the public service domain are issues of national strategic concern. The national skills development strategy adopted by this government is an attempt at addressing this problem. We are following this up with a skills development strategy specifically targeted at the public service. A draft strategy document is currently circulating amongst stakeholders and this will be finalised shortly. The public launch of this strategy will co-incide with the formal launch of the PSETA on 27 July this year.
An ambitious programme for more basic work-skills training has been outlined by the PSETA. This includes:
I have already outlined some of the domestic training initiatives of SAMDI. SAMDI has also started to play a much more active role within the region and in the Commonwealth structures to assist in the strengthening of curriculum content and training capacity in developing countries. Only last week, SAMDI was part of a very successful pilot initiative in which a newly developed leadership programme for senior management were piloted. SAMDI played a key role in the curriculum development process, and will also be instrumental in the facilitation of course content. This programme will eventually be extended to Uganda, Sri Lanka and other developing countries within the Commonwealth fold.
But this brings me to a more central point. We are increasingly concerned about the contribution of the "schools of government" at our institutions of higher learning. Attention needs to be given at how best to adjust curriculum in order to make it most suitable for our needs in the public service. We are often disappointed when we appoint candidates with ostensible good and appropriate qualifications, but who disappoints in the practical application of their knowledge.
I am concerned that the weak situation that public management is being placed in. Compared to that of some of the IT, sciences and commercial disciplines, public management has been placed in the lowest possible category, together with the social sciences. Without detracting from the importance of the areas that have been prioritised, to separate public management from the area of business management, and lowering its status in the process, will further erode the quality of training in the area of public management which we as a government have continually identified as of strategic importance.
One of the mechanisms that we are going to start rolling out this year in the interest of capacity building, is our internship policy. We have repeatedly pointed to the fact that students who have just finished studying with no practical experience, do not constitute optimal candidates for public service employment. At the same time, we do not want a situation where the state has subsidised the studies of a person, and that person runs into the obstacle of "over-qualified, with no practical experience". Clearly those who have demonstrated a certain degree of aptitude, knowledge and commitment are deserving of an opportunity to try their hand at the practice. This is more so in a situation where we are identifying capacity and ability to deliver as some of our key constraints.
To this effect we are in the process of developing an internship policy for government. The proposal - that still needs to be approved by cabinet - will open the way for departments to be able to appoint interns for a maximum period of 12 months against a stipend still to be agreed on. We have been discussing the introduction of a small pilot internship programme with some stakeholders from which we can learn many valuable lessons before we upscale completely. I anticipate that we will accommodate 1 000 student interns by next year. We are also engaging with local authorities, to extend the intership framework to them, to assist in massive capacity shortages at level.
INTEGRATED AND CO-ORDINATED GOVERNANCE
The President has articulated the importance of co-ordinated governance on a number of occasions. The efforts of Cabinet in this area of translated into a range of practice co-ordination efforts that provide for horizontal and vertical co-ordination across government. The integration efforts are reflected in, for example, the Integrated Rural Development strategy and a range of cross cutting government wide programmes. In line with this, DPSA work has largely integrated into the priorities of clusters and is reflected in the co-ordination programmes and projects outlined by the Governance and Administration Cluster. These include projects that are to be jointly executed by the cluster and projects to be executed by individual departments or inter-departmental efforts. In either case, the G & A cluster will monitor these. The projects generally fall into the following four priority programme areas:
1. Strengthening the centre of government: At the centre of this is the further implementation and consolidation of the planning cycle and the development and implementation of appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems. Closely aligned to this effort is the implementation of a government wide communication strategy.
2. Support to service delivery institutions: This includes projects directed at enhancing the capability of service delivery institutions at all levels of government and for the further implementation and realisation of the Batho Pele principles. Link to this are efforts to understand and overcome the problems of under-spending in departments and for improving the resources and infrastructure required to support service delivery institutions.
3. Information to support decision-making and policy development: Central to the efforts in this area is to enhance access and availability of critical information for policy development and decision-making. Central to this are efforts to integrate existing projects that provided decision-making information and to ensure the effective role out of appropriate document management systems and strategies for managing knowledge in government.
4. Strengthening inter-governmental systems: Of critical importance in this area are the efforts to conduct an audit of the functioning of the inter-governmental system and to develop strategies that could streamline and enhance the appropriate exercise of powers and functions across different spheres of government.
In addition to these four priority programme areas, a range of co-ordination projects, including anti-corruption and e-government projects are an integral part of our efforts to ensure integration across government. As part of the co-ordination processes and the integrated planning cycle, efforts are being put in place to ensure co-ordination with local government and to allow for the mobility of public servants between different tiers of government. These efforts are in line with calls for uniformity across service delivery areas and in line with efforts to allow for the redeployment and movement of officials between different tiers and sectors of government. In further consolidating our efforts, our partnership with departments and, in particular, the Department of Provincial and Local Government, we need to move cautiously on creating a uniform systems, such that we are able to ensure that we enhance the capacity for service delivery at points where they are most needed and will have the desired impact.
KEEPING TRACK WITH NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SPHERE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT
The public service transformation programme in South Africa is heavily influenced by the international trends and developments in the area of public management and administration. In our early period of policy formulation we have drawn heavily on the "new public management paradigm" pursued by countries such as the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada. South Africa could not have pretended to be immune against such a global development, that permeated all of the international literature, came at us through the Internet, and through the consulting community that where extremely dominant in the early days of our governing period.
Always cautious about adapting "borrowed" policy, and having felt increasingly uneasy about the extremes to which some of the champions of new public management has taken some of the fundamental dimensions in public management reform, we have started to play a stronger role in international public management debates. We have always had particularly concern about the transferability of these extreme views to developing countries, and Africa specifically. Initially we have raised the difficult questions. But in more recent times, participating in a Commonwealth conference in Birmingham, and expert group meetings convened under the UN programme in Public Administration and Finance during the past two years, we have increasingly come under the impression that a groundswell is starting to emerge that is constructively critical towards some of the consequences of "new public management". These aspects include:
We are using the opportunity that these and similar events are offering to the best of our ability to strengthen the voice from Africa and the developing world in these discussions. Informal networks as well as formal organisations concerning themselves with issues of public management in Africa are emerging, and we participate in these as best as possible. These include CAFRAD, AAPAM and a group that has been forming under the auspices of SADC but which includes other countries as well. Initiatives like these are starting to give content to the Millennium Action Plan.
Following the international trend of the new public management paradigm as discussed, we have set in motion some initiatives in this country that demands some closer scrutiny. We are looking with fresh eyes to the positive AND negative effects of privatisation, commercialisation, decentralisation and partnership initiatives. As a key priority to start off with we want to understand the phenomenon of Public Entities much better. The strengthening of the accountability framework between the various entities that operate in the public sphere, and the centre of government, and the public demands a review and most probably a tightening up. We are also starting to raise critical questions around issues of the distance between local authorities and the central government. After all, we are all part of government, and we have found that the public makes very little distinction between these various administrative divisions that we have imposed on the system. In the interest of greater flexibility and better utilisation of our scarce resources we are looking at strengthening a uniform umbrella framework for ALL the entities falling within the ambit of the public sector.
ANTI-CORRUPTION
Footwork that has been in the process on Anti-corruption in the Public Service has reached much greater momentum towards the end of last year and early this year and a number of streams are starting to come together. A most fortunate confluence with the National Anti-Corruption Strategy has occurred, and we believe by co-ordinating the Public Service Anti-corruption strategy with the national one, the impact of both will be exponentially bigger. The Public Service Anti-corruption strategy brings a specific focus to anti-corruption work in a sector in society that has always shown an inclination to corrupt behaviour - the public service.
However, corruption is a society wide phenomenon that needs holistic, integrated, society wide strategies if we want to deal with the problem at hand effectively. The potential to deal with it in this manner will be afforded by the National Strategy, when representatives from all the important sectors in society will be coming together to co-ordinate their attempts at dealing with this issue.
We are convinced that partnering forms the cornerstone for a successful South African anti-corruption effort and the work done in anticipation of establishing the National Anti-corruption Forum is proof of this fact. The partnership idea also extends beyond our national borders, to include regional and international co-operation. A firm framework for national action is constructed through international instruments to which South Africa is already party, or will become party in future, such as declarations and conventions, participation in global programmes and donor assistance, for example that of the UN.
Another cornerstone is provided by political commitment, as evident through a sturdy institutional, legislative and regulatory framework that has been set in place since 1994. And this brings me to issues of Anti-corruption in the Public Service. I believe that the mechanisms for fighting corruption and dealing with corruption in the public service is in place - in theory. Good progress has also been made at the level of operational management practices, for example strengthening risk management initiatives in the public service.
"Honesty" and "integrity" has been singled out as some of the key dimensions which candidates for senior management consideration will have to show an inclination towards, before being considered favourably for appointment.
However, in the application of the frameworks and in bringing to bear all the mechanisms at their disposal, managers are still not succeeding at dealing with corruption.
I believe that there are two aspects that we urgently need to apply our minds to if we want to understand the reasons for this lack of success in implementation.
In the first place, we need to ask ourselves whether some of the frameworks we are expecting managers to operate in are making adequate distinction between various levels of corrupt behaviour and the avenues to follow for each category? If we provide a more administrative mechanism to deal with smaller cases of corruption, will it not allow us to stomp our corrupt behaviour when it starts happening and allow this to happen with less effort from the side of a manager, than to try and build up a criminal case for normal judicial consideration? In any event, is it feasible to try to take all cases of corruption, particularly multiple small ones to our criminal system which is already buckling under a heavy case load?
In the second place, I think we still need to get better systematic evidence, and deeper analysis of trends in the area of public service corruption specifically, and societal corruption in general. I think the academic community and civil society research organisations have a big responsibility to shift the debate and understanding around public service corruption beyond the anecdotal and head line level which is supplied by the popular media. This will contribute greatly to the watchdog - partnering role that we are anticipating as successful strategy to deal with public service corruption issues.
CONCLUSION
I started this speech off by showing the link between transformation and improved service delivery - change and action. I have also shown that it will need significant action by all of us to affect the changes in the public service as a clumsy, big institution, fundamentally caught up in some of the shackles of the past that it is trying to shed.
As I have said earlier, the initiatives in my portfolio will not centre on policy change, but will move from the firm foundations of existing policy. However, we are continuing our strategies of working through any implementation problems by assisting departments to get ready to comply with the policy frameworks and to customise them as far as possible. We will continue to explore all the options that technological development is offering for streamlining and speeding up our way of working. We will continue to equip the public service as employer body as best as possible to deal with the anticipated impact of HIV/AIDS on it, and on society in general.
We will give special focus and impetus to the following issues:
This is a far-reaching programme, but I believe that together we can do it. Between political, social, economic, religious and administrative society we have what it takes to realise our societal dreams and we can only begin to do this if we take action to induce change in the public service.
Machiavelli stated:
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things."
After having been involved in trying to establish a new order of things for most of my life, I can wholeheartedly concur with him. However, I am a daughter of Africa, and draw my insights from Africa and the wisdom that is so deeply imbedded in the African people. I want to leave two African proverbs with you as inspiration and for further thought.
One piece of wood only does not keep the fire alight. It takes a village to raise a child. The key questions are: