The Public Service Month (PSM) is an integrated strategic national event in the calendar of the Public Service and Administration, as such all the national and provincial departments are required to participate and thereby put in place activities and campaigns to take service delivery to a higher productivity.
The PSM is a follow-up to and mirrors the United Nations and Africa Public Service Day (APSD) which took place on 23 June 2012 in Cape Town Province guided by the theme "Capacity Development for Implementation of the African Charter and Principles of Public Service and Administration Towards Capable Developmental States".
Furthermore, the 2012 PSM is significant in that it coincides with 15 years of institutionalising and instilling the ethos of Batho Pele (BP) within the public service and this will be marked by the launching of key projects like "service delivery exhibition awards, Batho Pele Friday, etc,".
The PSM will further reflect on the achievements made thus far the challenges of BP implementation the impact thereof on service delivery as well as coming up with future mechanisms to strengthen and ensure continuous improvement programmes. The celebrations which advances the strategic intent of Batho Pele through the Revitalisation Programme, seek to entrench the ethos of Batho Pele by ensuring integrated and alignment with government priorities as well as incorporating major national and provincial platforms and campaigns that seek to advance quality service delivery to all.
The objectives of this year's PSM are to:
- Reflect on the institutionalising the ethos of Batho Pele within the Public Service: 15 years later and to re-think the way ahead to ensure continuous improvement.
- Strengthen access and citizen participation through SMS deployment, follow-up and monitoring culminating into Service Delivery Conference to facilitate reflection, conversation and feedback on pertinent service delivery issues (emanating from deployment among others).
- Pay tribute to the critical role played by the late Minister for Public Service and Administration, Minister Padayachie in instilling and institutionalising the ethos of Batho Pele in the public service by Launching 'Batho Pele Friday' during the PSM to instil pride, professionalism and passion among public servants to serve, and
- Popularise the implementation, monitoring and reporting on the African Charter as a follow-up to the 2012 APSD discussions that was held in the Western Cape.
The 2012 PSM theme is "15 Years of Batho Pele: Strengthening the Ethos of Batho Pele & Recommitment Towards an Efficient, Effective and Development Oriented Public Service and Empowered Citizenry". It mirrors the UN and APSD theme for 2012, namely: "Capacity Development for Implementation of the African Charter and Principles of Public Service and Administration Towards Capable Developmental States". It is also influenced by the 15 years journey of mainstreaming and institutionalising Batho Pele in the Public Service.
The PSM 2012 activities will be realised through integrating the following MPSA's led national campaigns which include:
Instilling Ethos in the Public Service
The PSM will establish a platform to create evaluate the implementation of BP in the past 15 years, share successes, discuss challenges with the aim of finding possible solutions to improve. In relation to instilling ethos, the following policies, among others, Batho Pele, instilling the Code of Conduct for the public service by intensifying the "we belong, we care, we serve" corporate identity as well as the Management Frameworks dealing with a compendium of ethical and good governance measures, will form basis for discussion.
The highlights of the above will be the launching of the Batho Pele Friday Campaign by the MPSA. The campaign seeks to instil pride and passion of the Public Servants to be "Proud to Serve" the citizens with professionalism by highlighting, demonstrating and showcasing Two Batho Pele Principles every Friday for the duration of the PSM.
The above is against the background that, Batho Pele is an integral part of our work on daily basis and principles are interlink, assignment of two principles per Friday is just to celebrate the PSM and to visibly showcase that, BP is critical, alive and taken seriously by all the public servants.
Anti-Corruption Campaign
The above will be responding to the priority areas of effectively tackling corruption in the public service; and the implementation of SITA turn-around strategy to improve service delivery. The discussions and activities will engage and create awareness to encourage and embrace the use of ICT to assist in combating corruption, among others.
The ICT support in this regard will also take into account the theme and deliberations of the GovTech which is a multi-stakeholder Conference which will take place during the month of September led by SITA. The approach will create further awareness on anti-corruption tools and instruments, the register for public servants' interests; and Public Sector Integrity Management Framework through information sharing and discussions.
Efficient Service Delivery in the Public Service
Effective service delivery and modernisation of the public service will be among the national programmes that will strengthen achievement of outputs. The impact of training programmes will be assessed to influence the Repositioning of PALAMA, as well as embracing and encouraging the use of ICT as an enabler towards improving service delivery, improve waiting and turn-around times, unblock blockages in certain areas, contribute towards efficiency in decision-making, assist in combating corruption, etc.
Public Participation
Various platforms for public participation will be created for both accessing service delivery at the close reach and engaging to understand the impact of government services. These will provide opportunities for the meaningful engagement with the citizens in various forms that include a meeting with them to understand their needs and levels of satisfaction regarding public services create awareness by encouraging them to hold public servants accountable if they are not responding to their needs and blowing the whistle on corrupt fraudulent situations.
Public Participation will also be marked by senior management deployment, unannounced visits to the service delivery sites, outreach through Community Development Workers both for Generic (Public Service) and Sector Specific.
The format of the PSM 2012 takes into account government's priorities; the outcomes based approach adopted and the related outputs in advancing the course of the effective, efficient and developmental public service and an empowered citizenship.
Different service delivery events, celebrations and showcasing will be taking place at various provinces through the deployment of multi-departmental task teams, comprising of national and provincial officials, Batho Pele Coordinators, etc, in the quest to take quality services to the citizens.
The month's activities and programmes will be co-ordinated through the Ministry for Public Service and Administration (MPSA) in collaboration with national Departments and Offices of the Premiers across the public service and will be grounded around the following focus areas:
- Quality access to integrated service delivery and citizen engagement and participation.
- Unannounced visits and deployment to service delivery and frontline areas by Executive Authorities accompanied by Senior and Middle management to assess, monitor and follow-up on service delivery challenges towards better life for all.
- Engagement with various stakeholders like business and civil societies on service delivery matters to strengthen government's efficiency and effectiveness, thus improving citizens' satisfaction levels.
- Recommitment by public servants to professionalism, patriotism and compassion towards efficiency and effectiveness in the public service by launching Batho Pele Fridays for the duration of the September month. The launch will further commemorate and pay tribute to the late MPSA Minister Padayachie by acknowledging and recognising his contribution, dedication, commitment and professionalism in taking the services to all especially the most vulnerable and poor.
- Re-launching of the Batho Pele Call Centre to effectively implement "redress" principle within the context of others, and
- The above will culminate to a Public Service Sports and Wellness day on 29 September 2012. This is a national event and as such, DPSA in collaboration with the Department of Sports will co-ordinate activities for the National Departments whilst the Provincial activities will be co-ordinated through the Offices of the Premiers.
