Report on Risk Management at Provincial Level: briefing

Meeting report

PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
14 May 2003
REPORT ON RISK MANAGEMENT AT PROVINCIAL LEVEL: BRIEFING

Chairperson: Mr PJ Gomomo (ANC)

Documents handed out
Integrated Risk Management: A Provincial Perspective.

SUMMARY
The Public Service Commission presented a report on risk management at provincial level to the Committee. In the discussion that followed, the Commission noted that risk management is often understood to pertain only to financial risk management, which was incorrect. Members were concerned that attendance at provincial risk management workshops was poor.

MINUTES
Public Service Commission presentation
Dr D Balie: Acting Director-General, Public Service Commission, and Ms M Van Blerk: Public Service Commission delegate, presented the document on behalf of the Commission. Mr J Ernstzen: Deputy Chairperson, Public Service Commission, noted that since the study had been completed in 2001, the question arose about what work had been done since that time to address the issues identified in the report. In this regard he said that they were in the process of preparing a tool that would take the process of implementing Risk Management strategies within Government Departments even further. The process would include consultation with all interested parties, including Ministers, and it aimed to involve South African experts.

Discussion
Ms L Maloney (ANC) expressed concern over the issue of certain Government Departments still making use of the Exchequer Act, since its use was supposed to have been immediately phased out by the advent of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). She asked what the position was at the moment, specifically what had been done to totally phase out the use of the Exchequer Act.

Ms Van Blerk said that she was not quite sure whether the use of the Exchequer Act had been totally phased out. However, she assumed that there was substantial progress in this regard because a great deal was happening with respect to the implementation of the PFMA.

Mr R Ntuli (DA) stated that he was trying to find congruency between what had been reported in this particular presentation and what was actually happening on the ground. He explained that in the presentation, the Eastern Cape is placed in a very good light, with compliance to risk management strategies being estimated to be between 50% and 80%. However, he continued, things had not been going very well there, especially with regards to education.

Mr Ernstzen replied that the example of education in the Eastern Cape is a good example of the down side of the picture. He then explained that this report covered the entire province and did not focus only on education. The information was tested factually. They were hoping to get a more comprehensive report on the Eastern Cape as a result of the investigations performed by the Interim Management Team. He concurred with Mr Ntuli that they also had to look at what was happening on the ground as compared to the findings of their studies.

Mr T Abrahams (ANC) said he appreciated the fact that the provincial workshops had taken place. However, he expressed regret at the fact that two provinces did not participate in the workshops at all and also in the fact that there had been poor attendance in the majority of the cases. This put them at a disadvantage because they would therefore not have all the factual tools to implement risk management strategies effectively. He asked what 'tool' Mr Ernstzen was talking about.

This question did not appear to have been answered.

Ms Mentor (ACDP) asserted that a great deal of emphasis was placed on financial risk management, and she asked whether there were any intervention strategies pertaining to information risk management or whether there were any in the pipelines.

Ms Van Blerk responded that as the Public Service Commission they had commissioned a study based on international best practice on risk management. After the study, she continued, they could get an indication of the level of risk within the Department. She explained that information is also a risk. Managing this risk is not a specific initiative, she stated. They would rather stress that risk management is a wide initiative covering all aspects of the Department. They therefore wanted to do evaluation on an annual basis to continually assess the level of the implementation of risk management.

Ms Maloney asked whether, in the future plans of the Public Service Commission, they were thinking of providing incentives as a method of increasing attendance of the provincial risk management workshops. She suggested that they could possibly give certificates to staff who attend the workshops.

Mr Balie replied that they did not have such plans at the moment, but that they would look at ways of ensuring that compliance and attendance of workshops by the provinces was high. He said that they would like to see a risk management strategy for the entire Public Service in place. With regard to this, there is a broader intervention at work, he stated, therefore the issue of incentives and certificates will arise.

Ms Mentor revisited the question on information risk management, stating that she was not happy with the response. She would therefore not ask a question this time, but would forward a request. There was a tendency among statutory bodies to assume that risk management means financial risk management. She felt that they should thus address the issue of in a way which addresses the latent problem of it leaning mostly towards financial risk management.

Mr Ernstzen stated that the point was taken and that they would take this into account.

Mr Gomomo (Chairperson, ANC) firstly stated that they were looking forward to being briefed by the Public Service Commission at a later date about the 'tool' that Mr Ernstzen had mentioned.

Adoption of minutes
Minutes of Committee meetings dating from 19 February were adopted.

The meeting was adjourned.