Department of Correctional Services (DCS) Quarterly Report, 7-day Establishment & Occupation Specific Dispensation & Healthcare issues progress reports

Meeting report

Department of Correctional Service (DCS) quarterly administrative and financial report, focusing also on Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD), 7-day establishment, healthcare issues
Dr Jenny Schreiner, Acting National Commissioner, Department of Correctional Services, commenced the presentation of the Administrative and Financial report by stating that the Department of Correctional Services (DCS or the Department)was fully aware of its weaknesses as a Department, in terms of national competency. Better cooperation with the Committee was crucial in the future, in order to achieve greater results.

The highlights of the report were recapped in the areas of Implementation of the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) and the 7-Day Establishment. She made it clear that both the OSD and the 7 Day Establishment were functions of the Human Resource of the DCS, but could be regarded as a total Departmental effort, considering their over-spill effect. Central to the OSD was the ability to identify administrative posts as public service posts. This fact would serve the Department well in the long run since it would allow for better management of the human resources as well as better control of the remuneration budget. This financial year, however, had seen a shortage or reduced financial commitments from the funders of the DCS, which meant that the DCS was largely underfunded. This had resulted in the Department having to use its own resources to did a lot of the ground work, to make the OSD plan work. Another issue that put further pressure on the OSD process was the employee back pay. The Department had taken a resolution that this be implemented, and this entailed using the limited resources to also fund the back pay of the DCS employees. The migration process of employees to the centre base was something that needed to be managed properly and carefully, as some of the crucial functions such as supply chain management and asset management could be easily affected by the migration of employees from non-centre base functions of the DCS, to centre based functions. The details of that impact of migration, however, would be discussed more fully during the other presentations.

The shift to the 7 Day Establishment had also been a crucial move, to counter the criticism that the Department had received regarding its expenditure on overtime work, which was done in the past to maintain a 365 day working calendar, while using a five-days-a-week schedule. The new dispensation used a 7 Day Establishment programme. In this quarter it had resulted in some budget savings for the Department. The 7 Day shift had also allowed the Department the ability to be flexible in its scheduling of work days for human resources, to ensure that inmates received the assistance they required. In line with the above changes, DCS had also moved into a two by twelve shift system, which was a process managed by the Corporate division of the DCS. The two by twelve shift system also acknowledged that no two correctional service facilities were alike, so the infrastructural needs and the ratio of inmates to staff of each should be tailored accordingly.

In order to alleviate some of the budgetary constraints caused by the OSD funding and back pay implementation, DCS had communicated with the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and the National Treasury and had been granted a R595 million funding injection to deal with them. However, since this was not the amount requested, there was a need for DCS to look into its own means to fund the rest of the required funding commitments. A moratorium had since then been put in place to assess how much impact the implementation of the OSD would had on the DCS's budget, and whether it could be met successfully. That moratorium was also still in place and was constantly being reviewed to ensure that DCS did not overspend on employee budgets. In the process of making the necessary budget adjustments DCS had carefully tried to balance the essential expenditures, and ensure that matters such as feeding were not affected. In essence, the DCS was involved in these processes but the lack of financial leverage was the one big constraint to much of the successful implementation of these aims.

The Commissioner then went on to discuss other priority areas in which the Department was working. These  ranged from stakeholder management, to human resources management and development, regulatory and monitoring, as well as operations strategy, for all nine provinces (see attached document for details).

Dr Schreiner then ended the presentation by reiterating the challenges faced by the DCS, which were budgetary constraints, electronic management of administrative processes, vacancy rate increases, and shortage of scarce skills, as well as issues around security.

Dr Joey Coetzee, Deputy Commissioner of Corporate Services, DCS, also recapped some of the highlights of the report by going into some detail on issues such as security risks by province. Administration issues were also recapped, including the internship program for the DCS and the Electronic Documents and Records Management System (EDRMS), operations strategy as well as statistics (see Administrative and financial report document for full details).

Financial Report
Ms Nandi Mareka, Acting Chief Financial Officer, DCS, presented on the Department's finances, following the presentation on the Administrative and Financial report document. In particular she drew attention to a  50% overspending this financial year, as well as a R595 million rand funding injection from the National Treasury. She also explained that the accounts that took up much of the expenditure this year were the employees back pay programme and the implementation of the OSD and the 7 Day Establishment, as outlined earlier by Dr Schreiner. She also explained that the financial recession was also largely to blame for the inability of certain financial commitments to come to fruition. She cited increased operational costs in both essential elements of the DCS, being feeding of inmates and infrastructural expansion, and said that this extended also to other programmes that the Department was undertaking.

Health Care Delivery Report
Ms Maria Mabena, Director of Health Care Services, DCS, commenced her presentation by outlining the history of health services to inmates. She cited Section 14(2) of the Health Act, which originally only made primary health care accessible to inmates for free. In 1999, it was decided that, due to the capacity demands of correctional facilities, free health care to inmates was to be discontinued. The areas of health care with which the DCS was concerned were preventive care, promotive care, curative care for acute and chronic communicable and non communicable diseases, rehabilitative care, referral services for secondary and tertiary levels of care, and discharge planning. Service areas currently active in the Department were tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, youth health, pharmaceutical services, mental health care and basic dental and health care services (as more fully set out in the  Overview of Health Care Delivery and Management document).

Ms Mabena described the various programmes in which the DCS was involved, such as training of more Primary Health Care personnel as well as Project for Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) funded activities. She also presented some health statistics that dealt with inmate health care, as well as challenges and constraints to date (see document).

Discussion
Mr J Selfe (DA) asked how far the Department felt it had progressed  in the previous quarters, and where it was hoping to go in the future.

Ms Mareka responded that the objectives for the future were to improve the delivery of the objectives of the Department as well as the quarterly improvement in the management of the Department through a close relationship between the stakeholders.

Ms N Mdaka (ANC) asked what was wrong with the asset management of the DCS, and who controlled the asset register.

Ms Mareka replied that in previous years the Department used different asset registers to record assets, but with effect from this year it had set up the process of using a single asset register. The consolidation of one asset register had resulted in discovery of many mistakes in the asset registry, as a result of the previous system. Owing to some capacity issues, DCS had also seen that in many regions the management was only skilled in policing and not in financial management. This had made it difficult to create proper asset registries because some managers did not have the capacity to effectively manage assets within the Department, which was another reason for the shortcomings in the management of the asset registry.

Dr N Fihla (ANC) asked about the workshop projects and why they did not work.

Mr Alfred Tsetsane, Chief Deputy Commissioner: Corporate Services, DCS, replied that the lack of skilled artisans made it hard for the factories and workshops to effectively work because these artisans were crucial to their operations.

Mr S Abram (ANC) asked about the vehicles and what were the determinants of the vehicles' lifespan.

Ms Mareka replied that nationally DCS had a fleet of 4 000 vehicles, and the vehicle lifespan was determined by the mileage the vehicle covered. That was used as a basis of whether or not it was still considered roadworthy. A lot of problems were actually caused by lack of proper management. Some officials had been using vehicles without the proper authorisation or permits. Another issue was the theft of vehicle parts; for instance, employees were stealing brand new vehicle parts like wheel caps, and putting them on their private vehicles, which caused great problems for the management of the vehicle fleet.

Ms Mdaka asked how long the Department had known of this vehicle mismanagement.

Ms Mareka replied that the DCS had been aware of it for a while now, and it had been on the agenda to deal with it. However, the major problem was the amount of cover-up that had been going on. Employees had not cooperated with investigation units that were trying to uncover the problems and bring the issues to light.

The Chairperson asked about the objectives of the monitoring and evaluation and why it was not done internally.

Dr Schreiner responded that the need to improve the workings of the Department meant that the need for good monitoring and evaluation. The process of monitoring and evaluation was something that DCS had not had skills for in the past.  DCS need to improve on many core issues. This gave rise to the need to outsource certain skills to the relevant service providers.

The Chairperson asked for details of the relationship between the DCS and the Department of Health (DoH).

Ms Maria Mabena, Director of Health Care Services, DCS, said the two departments had a very good relationship and it had proven very valuable in the recent outbreaks of measles in some of the correctional service facilities across the country.

The Chairperson said the DCS was scheduled to come again to meet the Committee, together with the Department of Public Works (DPW), on 9 February 2010, to discuss other aspects around facilities that were raised in the report. He also felt that the issue of health was something that needed to be discussed at length as it was a key priority of the State of the Nation Address. He also urged the Office of the Auditor General to assist the DCS in its asset management processes, because this was an area in which the skills were lacking.

The meeting was adjourned.