Service and Administration, at the International Human Resource Management
Conference, Cape Town
19 April 2007
Honourable members of Parliament
Fellow Ministers
Professor Sangweni, Chairperson of the Public Service Commission
Mr Oscar Jackson, President of the International Public Management Association
for Human Resources (IPMA-HR), United States of America (USA)
Esteemed international and local guests
It gives me great pleasure to share a few thoughts with you at this
International Human Resource Management Conference co-hosted by the Public
Service Commission (PSC) of South Africa and the International Public
Management Association for Human Resources. As the custodian of human resource
management policy and norms and standards in the South African public service,
I am always heartened by initiatives to promote sound human resource management
and promote knowledge sharing of this discipline. It's a discipline that is
central to building sound public administration. The co-hosting of this
conference by the PSC and (IPMA-HR) is an ideal opportunity to bring together
human resource practitioners from South Africa and across the globe to discuss
the challenges of human resource management.
Human resource management in the South African public service at national,
provincial and local government level has been in a consistent process of
transformation since the advent of democracy in 1994. The White Paper on Human
Resource Management for the Public Service 1997 identified the need for a shift
from personnel administration to human resource management. This was a shift
that was by no means easy and is one that we are still dealing with today. The
mission of the White Paper indicates, "Human resource management in the Public
Service should become a model of excellence in which service to society stems
from individual commitment instead of compulsion." It is also an attempt to
ensure that we have a professional human resource management capacity in South
Africa.
Considering that more than one million people are employed in the public
service, people are the public service's most valuable asset and managing human
resources effectively and strategically is the cornerstone of the broader
transformation of the public service.
Traditionally, the management of people in the public service has been
regarded as the task of personnel administration components whose main task has
been to ensure compliance with centrally determined regulations and prescripts.
The White Paper, however, stressed the fact that human resource management
within the public service needed to undergo fundamental change in order to
actualise among others the following management principles:
* Increased delegation of managerial responsibility and authority to
national departments and provincial administrations and within departments, the
delegation of day to day management decisions to line managers.
* The development of a service delivery oriented, multi-skilled and
multi-cultural workforce critically the need to be able to deal with
diversity.
* Creating a flexible environment that takes into account both the
operational needs of the organisation and the needs of the employees, giving
meaning to the belief set of Batho Pele: "We Belong, We Care, We Serve."
The human resource management strategy for the public service as provided
for in the White Paper emphasises the necessity to maximise people development,
management and empowerment to accelerate transformation and service delivery
that will benefit the people of South Africa. A major human resource management
objective is the development of cultural diversity which builds positively on
employees' differing cultural backgrounds, so that the diversity adds value,
rather than creating obstacles.
Departments and provincial administrations are becoming increasingly complex
in terms of size, financial resources, utilisation of personnel and service
diversification. Human resource practitioners and line managers are therefore
under increasing pressure to apply sound human resource management practices.
Applying sound human resource management implies attention to all its strategic
components. Sound recruitment and selection, training and development,
performance management, compensation management, labour relations and
management of discipline are but some of the practices that practitioners and
managers must master in ensuring effective human resource management.
The theme of this conference, "Building public sector human resource
capacity in a developmental state," speaks to the critical need for the South
African public service in particular to optimise the utilisation of staff and
ensure that there is continuous performance improvement in the public service
through the recruitment and retention of competent staff and their continuous
development. This can only be achieved if sufficient detailed attention is
given to the human resource management practices that I have alluded to. We
also need to give attention to the challenges with regard to job hopping,
especially within the public service.
I am particularly pleased by the presence of delegates from African
countries both as participants on the programme and as delegates in attendance.
Human resource management has very specific challenges within the African
context. The significance of human resource management is in fact highlighted
in the Africa Public Service Charter adopted by the third Biennial Pan-African
Conference of Ministers of Public Service in Windhoek, Namibia on 5 February
2001. The Charter stresses the obligations of the administration vis-a-vis
public service employees with respect to the different stages of their careers,
their remuneration and their working conditions. In particular it emphasises
the importance of recruitment, promotion, mobility, redeployment, training,
motivation, remuneration, physical safety, working conditions and security of
tenure. I am therefore glad that this conference will give attention to the
Charter.
There is generally a sense that in South Africa that we could do better in
terms of remuneration. Just up the road there is a conference attended by
academics, and they interestingly enough, voice a concern that the lucrative
conditions of service in the public sector are luring talent out of the
institutions of higher learning. Media practitioners tell us the same thing.
Yes, we could be more imaginative in our conditions of service but if we share
our experiences with colleagues from elsewhere on the continent, this will
provide a basis for comparison and analysis. We also need in this regard to
look at remuneration in relation to the fiscus and the implications
thereof.
In this regard, we in the governance and public service domain greatly value
and wish to deepen the existing beneficial collaboration with the United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
There are some key challenges we need to address as we embark on this
exciting journey of updating and implementing the African Public Service
Charter among African member states. African countries are faced with numerous
challenges in their efforts to reform and modernise the African public service.
One of the most important aspect to this transformation process is the
geo-political setting in which this reform process must take place. As was
correctly noted at the UNDESA conference on reinventing government that was
held in December 2006, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Charter can only be
effectively implemented if the environment is conducive both legally and
politically. At the same time the administrative environment should provide
adequate compensation for public servants, while citizens must be enlightened
and empowered to secure the rights which the legal framework and the Charter
entitle them to.
An important exercise in getting countries to embrace the Charter is to find
out what sort of impact implementation would have on individual member states.
Following discussion on the African Public Services Charter at the Fifth
Conference of Ministers of Public/Civil Service, the Addis Ababa declaration
mandated Ministers to go deeper in updating the Charter by enriching it with
the personal experiences of Member States during the transformative process of
reforming the public/civil service. The Charter can only be reformed in this
manner through localised in-depth research that will inform perspectives that
will be developed. This research output will in turn provide policymakers with
a guideline document that would also inform the continental process especially
with highlights on meaningful implications regarding implementation.
To advance the work on updating, implementing and domesticating the Charter,
I believe that this is an area where we will be able to draw on UNDESA
experience in other parts of the world and UNDESA will be able to share the
African experience with other regions.
Going forward there are a number of critical steps in taking the process
forward and maximising the potential of the Charter.
These critical steps are:
a) the confirming of the Charter publicly
b) comparing the differing national and regional objectives that must be
met
c) building internal capacity in order to spread information on and exploit the
potential of the Charter amongst all stakeholders
d) introducing the norms and values encompassed in the Charter in all training
and induction programmes for public servants
e) assessing the national legal context in terms of public service ethics and
the prevention of corruption (and self enrichment)
f) the need to couple local service charters with service delivery and
satisfaction surveys to determine baseline information as a tool for monitoring
and evaluation.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
As we deliberate, debate and discuss we must also recognise that the
developmental state needs more than sound management.
The developmental state needs leadership at all levels of the service
delivery chain, for it is those who deliver services that are responsible for
improving the lives of our citizenry. In South Africa our Constitution gives
very clear direction in Chapter 10, about how the public service must exercise
its functions.
We need to be wary of hiding behind so-called best practice and management
principles which are often the safe havens for the unimaginative.
What we need is to build leadership, to produce thinkers at every level of
the chain, who dare to be different, to look at problems with new eyes, to
recognise problems where others see the situation as immutable as the "way we
do things".
The President recently wrote to Ministers, Directors-General (DGs) and Heads
of Departments (HODs) exhorting us to identify those areas in which he have
done well and over the next two years to do even better. He used the word
"audacious" with reference to our efforts to improve delivery.
I believe that this is a call not just for South Africa, but should apply to
public administration globally.
Let us use the deliberations of this conference as a spring board to push
the boundaries and let the excellence shine through.
Thank you!
Issued by: Department of Public Service and Administration
19 April 2007
