on the Programme of Action, 14h00 to 15h30, Cape Town
28 August 2007
Introduction
In my last briefing on the Programme of Action, I gave a broad overview of
the work in the cluster as an introduction to the report.
Since then it is gratifying to be able to report that a number of projects
are gathering momentum.
Perhaps the most far-reaching project that we are currently engaged in is
the Single Public Service. This project is proceeding apace and I will come
back to this at the end of my briefing.
Other projects that are notable for their progress are the implementation of
Batho Pele within local government, the re-engineering of the South African
Management Development Institute (SAMDI), initiatives in building capacity in
local government, and the successful implementation of the Community
Development Worker programme across the county, to mention just some.
There is a thread that runs through these projects � the thread is that we
are building capacity - we are beginning to see our vision of a responsive,
accessible and developmental public service become a reality.
The G&A Cluster strives to improve the quality of life of the people by
improving governance, the capacity and organisation of the state and its
underlying systems. The Cluster's priorities derive from Government's
commitment to improve its service to the people as embodied in the 2004
electoral mandate.
Following the January 2007 Cabinet Lekgotla and the President's State of the
Nation Address on 9 February 2007, the Cluster developed a Programme of Action
(POA) for implementation of the mandate. The Cluster has four priorities:
* promoting good governance
* strengthening the capacity of the state
* achieving and maintaining the optimal organisation of the state
* developing and enhancing the state's transversal systems.
Government's POA for 2007 was approved by Cabinet on 5 March. The briefing
on the first report of the Cluster took place on 10 May. The briefing on the
second report took place on 3 July. This is the briefing on the third report
for 2007, finalised by Cabinet on 22 August 2007.
Progress Report for July to August 2007
Good Governance
Anti-Corruption
A draft anti-corruption communication strategy has been developed to
maximise communication campaigns of the implementation of the Local Government
Anti-corruption strategy. An Ethics Manual is being developed and the training
of municipal officials in the 27 districts will commence during the third
quarter of 2007.
Gender and Disability
The Head of Department's Eight Principle Action Plan for Promoting Women's
Empowerment and Gender Equality in the Public Service Workplace has been
developed and was launched in August 2007. Indicators for a gender audit of
departments have been developed and the audit will be conducted across all
departments during October-November 2007. The indicators for the social audit
and barriers analysis on the employment of disabled people in the public
service have been developed.
Batho Pele
A target of 100 municipalities was set for training the trainers in the
Batho Pele Change Management Engagement for the 2007/08 financial year. Already
182 municipalities have been reached and 15 high level management presentations
have been made. A monitoring and evaluation system is being developed to ensure
further rollout of the Batho Pele Change Management Programme within
Municipalities.
The model and implementation plan has been developed for the massification
of the induction of 100 000 new public servants. The core budget has been
approved. The first draft of the manual for junior and middle managers'
induction has been completed and is being circulated for comments. Training
will begin with a pilot in two provinces (Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal) in
November 2007 and will be rolled out to all national and provincial departments
early in 2008. To date a total of 3 030 officials have been trained by the
SAMDI and 32 956 by other service providers using the common Learning
Framework.
Public participation
A Presidential Imbizo was held in the Western Cape province on 21 to 22 July
2007. Various forums focused on the development and reconstruction of the
province and intergovernmental co-operation. An Imbizo Focus Week will be held
from 22 to 27 October to heighten communication on the implementation of
government programme of action.
Ninety-six percent of ward committees have been established countrywide
except for Ekurhuleni and City of Cape Town municipalities. Five out of nine
modules of the training material for ward committees have been finalised. The
launch of the training programme for ward committees is envisaged for September
2007 and training will commence in October 2007.
The rollout of cellular phones for ward committees and Community Development
Workers (CDWs) will be piloted with OR Tambo District in the Eastern Cape as
they complied with stipulations.
Capacity of the State
Local Government Strategic Agenda
The national and provincial Monitoring and Evaluating Forums have been
established in all nine provinces. There are challenges (approval of new posts,
financial constraints and staff turnover) in the filling of posts for
Monitoring and Evaluation units in the Offices of the Premier and the
provincial departments of local government.
The compilation of Skills Audit Toolkits for phase one of the skills audit
has commenced. A discussion document towards a National Training and
Development Strategy for Local Government has been compiled and is being
consulted upon.
Out of 283 municipalities, 141 were identified for hands-on support for the
implementation of the Performance Management System (PMS). A draft
implementation Strategy for the PMS has been developed and visits are being
undertaken to provinces to validate results of the PMS audit.
A review is currently being undertaken of the skills programmes in 14
districts. A draft Professionalisation Framework and Implementation Plan have
been compiled and are being consulted on. A Deployment Management Framework has
been finalised and distributed to all deploying stakeholders. Three hundred and
six (306) individuals with various technical expertise have been deployed to
over 90 municipalities since 2005.
Consultation on the National Programme of Support to Traditional Leaders has
been finalised in all provinces. Provinces have also agreed to participate in
the National Programme and they have been requested to submit their costed
Provincial Programmes of Support to feed into the costing of the National
Programme of Support before the programme is submitted to Cabinet for final
approval.
The Local Government Laws Amendment Bill was approved by Cabinet on the 26th
of June 2007, for introduction into Parliament. To date Rule 159 letters have
been sent to Parliament; the Rule 241(1) (c) Notice was published; the Bill,
the Afrikaans/Zulu versions and the Cabinet minutes approving the Bill were
sent to the State Law Advisors prior to 13 July 2007. The Bill has been
certified by the State Law Advisors and it has been successfully introduced to
Parliament.
Skills Development
HR Connect is a project aimed at rolling out a skills database in the public
service. Experience and qualifications of employees have been profiled. The
system is now web-enabled. Further customisation is ongoing. The circular
issued by the Department of Public Service and Administration (dpsa) has led
departments to consult with the dpsa when conducting skills audits and
developing human resource information systems.
The draft Leadership Development Strategic Framework (LDMS) contains the
revised version of the Senior Management Service (SMS) Competency Framework,
and will be launched for consultation during the SMS Conference in September.
The framework will be finalised in February for implementation from April 2008.
The Human Resource Development Strategy (HRD) for the Public Service has been
approved in principle. A National Steering Committee to oversee implementation
was launched in June. A pilot project in Gauteng province has been
finalised.
Plans are progressing to establish a Government-SETA (Sector Education and
Training Authority) Forum with SETAs operating in the government sector. The
aim of the Forum is to enhance and co-ordinate the Annual Training Reports, the
Workplace Skills Plans and Sector Skills Plans. A Graduate Development
Programme has been initiated with the SAMDI to accelerate the implementation of
the Internship and Learnership Programmes.
Capacity Building
The implementation of Cabinet's decision to establish a Public Service
Academy is continuing and negotiations with unions have resumed following
public service industrial action. An integrated curriculum development
framework for the new Academy is being developed and is being supported by a
national expert in curriculum development. The learning framework strategy will
be discussed with stakeholders in the next workshop with provincial academies
and other partners.
The Accelerated Development Programme (ADP) commenced on August 2006 and the
first cohort completed the Advanced Phase in July. Seventy-seven (77) of the
110 participants have qualified to proceed to the Executive Phase (Executive
Development Programme (EDP) .Initial training on the Web Course Tools has been
conducted and an initial training session was held on 1 to 3 August. It is
anticipated that the next cohort of the ADP will commence in April 2008.
A total number of 1 043 officials were trained in Supply Chain Management
from national and provincial departments between January to July 2007. A total
of 1 290 municipal officials were trained by July. There is a sustained demand
for Supply Chain Management training from local government. The development of
an e-Learning programme for Bid Committee members will be completed by August
2007 and rolled out by September 2007. A high-level introductory course on
Supply Chain Management was presented to Members of Parliament in July.
The target for anti-corruption training of 10 sessions has been exceeded by
five sessions. An accredited training manual for gender mainstreaming has been
developed. Training on disability management in the workplace was delivered in
10 municipalities in the reporting period. A total of 18 municipalities have
been trained and the target has been exceeded. Twenty officials from the South
African Police Service (SAPS) Head Office were trained in disability
management.
Macro Organisation of the State
Single Public Service
The July Cabinet Lekgotla approved that consultations on the Single Public
Service Bill should commence. A communication strategy has been developed and
is being implemented. Workshops were held in 14 departments and 16
municipalities and 8 other information sessions were held. Work on a
cost/benefit analysis with costing scenarios for the Single Public Service is
underway.
Integrated Service Delivery
Norms and standards for service delivery at Thusong Centres have been
developed as part of the service level agreements with departmental and other
service providers. These service providers will be trained in the Batho Pele
principles. A basket of key services has been identified for Thusong
Centres.
A national conference of Community Development Workers (CDWs) took place in
June to share experience and analyse opportunities and challenges around the
community development programme. In July 2007 a roundtable meeting was held to
develop relationships and build partnerships for the purpose of creating
integrated and co-ordinated improved service delivery approaches.
To date 3 011 CDWs are deployed in over 2 000 wards across the country. A
further 645 learners will enter the learnership programme by the end of August
2007. Recently 100 CDWs in the Eastern Cape and 254 in Gauteng completed their
learnership programme and have been absorbed into the CDW programme.
E-Government Projects
Terms of reference have been developed for the Citizen Relations Portal
(CRP) project, which aims to establish a service that allows citizens to make
enquiries about the progress of service delivery affecting them. It is planned
initially to include the services of the Departments of Home Affairs and Social
Development in the system.
An in-depth review of Department of Home Affairs' e-government systems is
being conducted and will be completed in October 2007. Immediate steps that are
being taken to strengthen information systems at Home Affairs are improving the
stability and security of the network, speeding up capture of ID information
onto HANIS (a major current bottleneck) and integration of systems related to
asylum seekers and refugees.
The first phase of the Track and Trace system is being rolled out to 240
offices countrywide from this week. It is expected to show immediate
improvements in the management of the system � and when it is fully operational
by the end of the year it is expected to start impacting significantly on
service delivery. The computerised production system for passports is
undergoing a major upgrade that will be completed by March 2008.
Transversal Systems
Integrated Planning
The pilot project for the harmonisation of the National Spatial Development
Perspective (NSDP), Provincial Growth and Development Strategies (PGDSs) and
Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) has been concluded in all 13 districts.
Reports on the outcomes from each district are being finalised.
Copies of the NSDP have also been distributed to all national and provincial
departments and municipalities. The Integrated Development Plans were adopted
by all municipalities as at the end of July 2007 which represents the first
100% adoption rate since the introduction of IDPs.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Mid-Term Review was launched on 21 June. The publication was provided in
advance to key opinion makers and policy analysts. The publication was
distributed to all national departments, provincial Directors-General (DGs) and
Premiers. The publication is currently being distributed to all libraries as
well as provincial heads of department. Copies were also delivered to
Parliament.
As part of the process of establishing the capacity requirements for
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) in government, two national and three
provincial focus groups on M&E training needs analysis have taken place.
Research on the provision of M&E programmes by higher education
institutions and other providers has been undertaken. A reference group for
curriculum development, implementation and review is being established. The
SAMDI will host an M&E Learning Network Seminar in October 2007.
The National Statistical System has conducted audits of the statistical
capacity of the Departments of Transport, Labour, Minerals and Energy and
Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Registers of the Department of Education are
being reviewed to ensure that quality data can be obtained. Work on definitions
of the Compendium of Indicators has started. The South African Statistical
Quality Assessment Framework (SASQAF), which sets statistical and
methodological quality standards for surveys, has been developed.
Single Public Service
In the 2007 State of the Nation Address, President Mbeki announced that in
this year government will be finalising the legislation for the single public
service. In the July Cabinet Lekgotla instructed the Department of Public
Service and Administration (dpsa) to consult with all stakeholders before the
Bill will be presented to Parliament.
There has been a fair degree of speculation by various stakeholders on
government's effort to have a single public service. Differing understanding of
the concept of a single public service and its intentions exists in certain
quarters, especially in the National Assembly debate on the Public Service
Amendment Bill in June this year.
Thus it is of importance to reinforce central tenets of the single public
service. Government remains committed to integrated development through
integrated service delivery. The concepts of integrated development and service
delivery may be found within the Constitutional framework of co-operative
governance. Furthermore, all the initiatives and framework policies of
government have centred on the fight against poverty and for sustainable
economic growth to the benefit of all South Africans. The single public service
is an initiative that is directly informed by the Reconstruction and
Development Programme, our macro-economic framework and the Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA). The single public service
is directly focused on decentralising government services so that they can be
easily and simply accessed by the citizenry.
Frequently Asked
Questions will be distributed for the information of the media.
Issued by: Department of Public Service and Administration
28 August 2007
