Department of Sport and Recreation on 1st Quarter 2011 Performance Report: briefing

Meeting report

The Chairperson requested the outstanding boxing report from Professor Paul Singh, Chief Director: Client Services, Department of Sport and Recreation [Sport and Recreation South Africa] (SRSA, the Department). The report was submitted to the Chairperson. The Chairperson asked the delegation from the Department to present its 1st Quarter 2011/12 report.

1st Quarter Report 2011-12 Financial Year. Presentation
Ms Ruth Mojalefa, Director: Strategic Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, SRSA, briefed the Committee on the Department’s Quarterly Report (April-June 2011)

Under the Programme 1 sub-programme related to Strategic and Executive Support a draft transformation charter and a framework for tourism strategy were developed. However the Department failed to hold the Sports and Recreation South Africa-South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SRSA-SASCOC) forum, which could only be activated again after the appointment of a Director-General (DG), who needed to indicate whether he/she wanted to proceed with the forum. The sub-programme related to Corporate Services; human resources (HR) achievements included a workplace skills plan approved and submitted to the Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority (PSETA) and Human Resource Development (HRD) plans approved and submitted to the Department of Sports and Recreation (DPSA). The legal services sub-programme held four Safety at Sport and Recreation Events Act stakeholder workshops; this exceeded the Department’s initial target of three. SRSA generated a report detailing the status of applicable bills, acts and regulations in sport and recreation. The Department also produced reports on litigation, legal advice and the intellectual property register. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO)’s office established a national funding forum and achieved 100% compliance with financial statutory reporting.

Under the Programme 2 sub-programme related to Scientific Support Services there were 332 sub-elite athletes who received scientific support, which exceeded the target of 200. 77 coaches received training in basic sport science and medicine, which exceeded the annual target of 70. The Department met its targets of producing 18 residential service provider implementation reports and 100% compliance with World Anti-Doping Agency anti-doping stipulations. SRSA failed to conduct official training camp monitoring visits and as result, failed to produce the associated report. Under the Programme 2 sub-programme related to Sport Support Services, SRSA analyzed and provided feedback for all nine provincial business plans, however no National Federations or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) received financial support in the 1st quarter because required documents were not submitted. The Department also failed to approve its transfer payment policy, as it was working towards having one integrated policy.

Under the Programme 3 sub-programme on Community Sport Performance related to the Mass Participation Programme (MPP), 5 054 people participated in sports promotion programmes; this exceeded SRSA’s target of 5 000.  The Department received only 10 of 40 conditional grant compliance monitoring reports on school sports. The SRSA-Department of Basic Education Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) had not yet been implemented; however there was an integrated delivery framework document that the Minister had agreed to sign by July 2011. 

Under the Programme 4 sub-programme related to International Relations, SRSA actively participated in the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa Zone V1 Executive Committee and sub-committee meetings held in Windhoek, Namibia 9-16 April 2011.  However an Information and Communication Technology Services (ICTS) cluster meeting was not attended.

Under the Programme 5 related to facilities coordination, the Department achieved its goal of 25 Municipalities lobbied to build sport and recreation facilities and also had 21 sites inspected.

Overall, SRSA concluded that the lack of manpower that had hampered service delivery remained problematic. A close working relationship between planning and monitoring and evaluation was emphasised. A more integrated approach with regards to the development of databases at Geographical Information Services (GIS) initiatives in the Department was needed. It was agreed that risk management and the risk register would become part of the Quality Service Risk Management (QSRM) in future. (See attached presentation for more details)

Discussion
The Chairperson opened the floor to discussion.

Mr D Lee (DA) asked to know why the Department could not fill the necessary vacancies at the senior management level. The reason why Departmental performance was below par was due to unfilled vacancies. If the posts could be filled, then the services could be delivered. Why could the SRSA-SASCOC forum not take place without a DG, if it was in the Departmental operation plan?

The Chairperson requested that in the Department’s response, it indicated how many vacancies currently existed.

Mr L Suka (ANC) stated that the report needed to speak to figures and the figures were nowhere to be found in this report. Unless there were figures, the report was incomplete. The Committee needed to know the actual expenditures. Would the Department present another report containing figures?

Mr Lee asked whether percentages in the report referred to the overall budget, or simply the 1st Quarter?

The Chairperson asked whether the Committee should first consider the Budget and Expenditure Analysis Report before it engaged in a discussion.

The Members agreed.

Budget and Expenditure Analysis Report  April-June 2011
Prof Singh introduced Mr Makoto Mattala, CFO at SRSA to present the Budget and Expenditure Analysis Report for Sport and Recreation South Africa, April-June 2011.
 
Mr Mattala stated that the purpose of the report was to provide an explanation of the expenditure trends of the Department, and give an economic classification for the 1st Quarter. The key features were an overall spending of R159 million which represented 19.84% of annual spending. Compensation of employees was at 22%, which was an under-spend of 3%, due to vacancies of the DG, the Chief Director of the MPP, the Director of Finance, the Director of Supply Chain, and the Director: Information Technology (IT). Total expenditure of goods and services was R22.67 million which represented 15.8% of the budget spending on goods and services. Transfer payments spending was 20.63%. Only the MPP conditional grants had been transferred. Payment for capital assets expenditure was 0.65% mainly because the Department had not yet procured gym equipment and office furniture.

The budget allocations per programme were 62% to Mass Participation, 20% to Sport Support Service, 14% to Administration, 3% to International Liaisons & Events and 1% to Facilities and Coordination. In terms of economic classifications, 71% of budget allocation went to transfer payments, 11% went to earmarked funds, 10% went to the compensation of employees, 7% went to goods and services and 1% went to payment for capital assets. The total expenditure trends were R92 755 in April, R39 350 in May and R27 112 in June. The reason for the higher spending in the month of April was mainly the transfers made on a quarterly basis to the provinces for the Mass Participation Allocation. The compensation of employees remained steady while goods and services were R2.8 million in April and increased to R9.7 million in May and R10.08 million in June. In regards to transfers to provinces, R83 million was transferred in April and R23 million transferred in May because three of the provinces did not meet the requirements. Departmental agencies had budget expenditures of only R7 000 in April and R6 000 in May and increased to R10 million in June, when transfers were made to Boxing South Africa and the South African Institute for Drug Free Sport (SAIDS). None of the R103 million that was allocated to National Federation had been transferred due to  non-compliance issues. Only R39 000 of the R5.6 million allocated for machinery and equipment had been spent as acquisition of gym equipment had not yet materialised. (See attached presentation for more details)

The Chairperson reopened the floor to discussion

Discussion
Mr S Mmusi (ANC) asked for clarification on the Programme 1 internal audit indicators. Only R14.5 million was spent on programme 4 against a budget of R17.7 million; what was the reason for the under-spend? This Committee often spoke of transformation; why was the Department only allocating 1% of its budget on facilities and coordination?

Mr G Mackenzie (COPE) asked whether it was a normal trend that none of the National Federations received financial support in the 1st quarter On Programme 4 for international liaison and events, how much did the Department pay for the international artists at the sport awards versus international peace agreements? On economic classification for non-profit institutions, there was a R103 million budget allocation and the total spent was 0; why was that the case?

Ms G Tseke (ANC) stated the presentation lacked information, as it was not specific enough, and did not name the NGOs and public entities that SRSA was supporting.

Ms L Mtobo (ANC) asked whether the ICTS cluster meeting was called and not attended or was the meeting not called and what the reasons for this were.

The Chairperson reiterated that there was detailed information that was missing from the report, and the Committee could not perform oversight without it. He reiterated the question of vacancies, and asked why these vacancies were not filled.

Ms T Lishiva (ANC) asked which three provinces did not meet the requirements.

Mr Suka raised the issue of the school sports management. Of the R3.6 million budgeted, 0% was spent. What was the fundamental reason for not spending?

Mr Lee stated that 13% spending on school sport was too low. Why was this expenditure so low?

Ms Lulu Sizani, Chief Director: Corporate Services, SRSA replied that regarding vacancies, the Department had 32 of 202 positions unfilled. The senior position referred to had an impact on the budget and an impact on service delivery.

The Chairperson asked who was responsible for appointments to these positions?

Ms Sizani replied that the vetting processes were not the responsibility of the Minister, but rather that of another Department and needed to be done before an appointment could be made. Competence assessments were done by the public service committee and public service had only accredited 11 service providers for the whole country which were responsible for all competence assessment of managers at the national, provincial and municipal levels. The process was delayed because of other factors. The DG position was advertised and the closing date was May 4th 2011, interviews were supposed to be conducted in July, but due to the Minister's travelling overseas, they were postponed until the 30th August. The vacancy in the office of the Chief Director of Mass Participation impacted on service delivery and this post had been vacant since 2009.

The Chairperson asked for clarification on how long the position had been vacant?

The position was advertised on May 4th 2011 and was submitted to the Minister on June 1st 2011. The Department was still waiting for the submission to return from the Minister. The post of Chief Director of IT had been problematic as a suitable candidate could not be recruited; the process was then outsourced to private agencies to recruit for the Department. This position would be red flagged with a provision from the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) that the SRSA would be allowed to recruit a non-South African or an individual from the academic institutions to occupy the position.

The Chairperson interjected and requested a written list of the Departmental vacancies.

Mr Mattala responded that the reason why the facilities budget was comparatively low was because the function of SRSA was not to build facilities, but rather to facilitate the building of facilities and ensure that facilities were maintained, but the Department did not perform the maintenance itself. The appropriations for facilities were also included in the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) transfers. On the question of international artists at the sports awards, SRSA was not responsible to pay for the international artists. The Department appointed a fund-raising company, which was responsible for those payments on the Department's behalf. The reason for under-spending on school sports programmes was because those programmes had not been rolled out yet in the first quarter, but would be rolled out later in the financial year.

Dr Bernardus Vanderspuy, Chief Director: Strategic Executive Support, SRSA stated that the SRSA-SASCOC forum was established by the late DG, Mr Vernie Petersen, in order to have a closer working relationship with key national federations. He identified 16 national federations and liaised with their chief executive officers (CEOs). The rationale was to work with the people on the ground at the federation level. The main purpose of this forum was to share the strategic initiatives of the Department and for the DG to be in touch with what was going on in the key federations. It was in SRSA’s interest to proceed with such a forum but it remained the prerogative of the incoming DG to decide whether to proceed with such a forum with the same terms of reference and the same federations. That was why the forum had not taken place.

Ms Noziphiwo Lubanga, Director: Internal Audit, SRSA asked for clarification from Mr Mmusi’s question.

Mr Mmusi asked for the distinction between achieved and partially achieved indicators in the 1st quarter report.

Ms Lubanga replied that under internal auditing there were eight risk action plans to undertake in the  1st quarter, however SRSA was only able to implemented six of the eight, therefore it was categorized as partially achieved because the target was not met.

Mr Simphiwe Mncube, Director: Facilities, SRSA apologised for the delays in submitting information. He stated that on the issue of establishing gym equipment, the process took longer in order technically to assess the buildings for structural stability. The time-line for procurement and delivery would be between December 2011 and January 2012.

Mr Lee asked where these gyms were so that Committee members could visit them and perform oversight.

The Chairperson requested a list of the locations of facilities and clubs.

Ms Nomakephu Kotelo, Director of Client Support Services, SRSA replied that it was in fact a trend to not transfer funds to the national federations in the 1st quarter, because the federations had developed a culture of not submitting all the required documents. With regards to the locations of the clubs, she responded that she would send a copy of this information to the Chairperson’s office.

Ms Rohini Naidoo, Director: School Sport, SRSA, replied that on the issue of school sport and spending the Department had delivered according to the operational plan and had partially delivered on the MOU being signed. It was now a matter of the MOU being signed between the two Ministers based on the integrated framework that was presented to the joint portfolio committee. The discussions had now evolved to state that the responsibility of SRSA was capacity building of educators and talent identification programmes. SRSA was now in the process of signing these service level agreements in terms of the delivery of capacity building programmes that were aligned to the national coaching framework.  Federations had to ensure that programmes were accredited and aligned with the national coaching framework long-term participant development plan.

The Chairperson asked how far was SRSA at the implementation level. If implementation was going to continue to be an issue, the school sport programme would never get off the ground.

Ms Naidoo replied that many of these issues were raised in the joint portfolio committee meeting and the questions focused on whether schools had the facilities and funding to deliver service. The Minister of Basic  Education had then clarified that SRSA would not deliver in school, but would support the delivery. SRSA must not be held accountable for what was not its area of delivery.

The Chairperson agreed with Ms Naidoo, but stated that the Committee needed to be kept informed.

Prof Singh replied on the issue of ICTS cluster meetings which were the responsibility of the DG to attend. He stated that the Client Support Office had attended the meeting and the information was collated within the Department and presented back to the cluster.

Mr Lee asked for a list of all investments that SRSA had made. For example, of the 77 coaches who were trained, where were these coaches trained and was a record kept of these coaches?

Ms Mtobo asked what did the coaches do after they were trained? Were they placed in their locality?

Ms Lishiva raised a question on the transfer of payments and asked why the non-profit institution budget was not spent?

Mr Mmusi asked for an explanation of how the Department quantified sports tourism?

Mr Mackenzie stated that facilities were a drawback to transformation and there were 461 facility projects between the nine provinces, but Committee Members needed more information on these facilities projects, as they did not know where many of them were. How did the high performance issues, such as scientific sport services fit into this programme, particularly in rural areas?

Ms Tseke asked whether the Department had any problems in getting information from the different municipalities.

The Chairperson asked Mr Mncube to indicate in his response which facilities had been built by municipalities.

Ms Hajira Mashego, Director: Scientific Support Services, SRSA, clarified that the scientific sports service was not a high performance programme. The high performance programmes were done by SASCOC. SRSA supported national development athletes. The federations selected the athletes based on a pool and SRSA supported them over a 4-year period through training camps, medical support, and the “cream of the group” was put in a residential programme through tertiary institutions. This included rural athletes if the national federations identified an athlete from a rural area. When the national federation selected athletes, it also selected coaches and then teamed them up with the coach. The coaches remained in a pool of development coaches and SRSA kept working with them through development camps.

Ms Kotelo clarified that by non-profits, SRSA meant the national federations.

The Chairperson asked whether SRSA still encountered the problem of getting the reports from provinces?

Ms Naidoo replied that this was still an issue. Over the 1st quarter the Department had to write twice to the provinces. Another problem was the lack of consistency in the reporting. SRSA was looking at the option of holding one-to-one meeting on monthly basis where the provinces would have to account to the Department.

The Chairperson asked whether the Parliamentary Liaison Officer (PLO) could raise this issue with the Minister so that the Members of the Executive Councils (MECs) could also assist.

Mr Lee asked for the names of provinces that SRSA was having problems with.

Ms Tseke stated that she was not convinced with the explanations regarding facilities, because Committee Members needed specific information in order to perform oversight. Which NGOs was the report referring to regarding achievements?

Prof Singh responded that the allocation for sport tourism was R7.4 million and the rationale behind sports tourism in relation to the budget was to use major sporting events to contribute to the economic development in the country by generating tourism. SRSA was in the process of developing a sport tourism strategy together with sister departments like the Department of Tourism.
 
Ms Kotelo replied that the three NGOs that received funding from SRSA were Love Life, SCORE and Sports Trust. In relation to Love Life, the Department still transferred funds from Treasury.

Prof Singh stated that SRSA had met with Love Life on two to three occasions and had asked it specifically to align what it did using sport to the business plans of the Department.

The Chairperson stated that Love Life would be in front of this Committee the following week to offer a briefing. He instructed the Committee Secretary to communicate the message to Love Life that Committee Members would like the documents in advance, by Thursday, so that they could be prepared for the meeting and conversant with relevant information. The Chairperson raised the issue regarding participation in the provincial indabas, that among most of the federations, people from the townships were underrepresented. The issue had been raised to the Deputy Minister, who had reassured the Chairperson that he would make it a point to check what the state of affairs was regarding participation among the federations.

Prof Singh updated the Committee on the process, which might have an impact on communication from some of the federations regarding their recognition. On August 8th 2011, the regulations related to the recognition of sports bodies were promulgated; however SRSA was currently in the process of getting the Minister to sign the submission and a letter to the president of SASCOC. SASCOC was previously responsible for the recognition of any sport body; the new regulations totally removed this function from it and brought the function back to the SRSA.

Mr Mackenzie asked about the status of the boxing report.

The Chairperson stated that there were copies available. Members would have a week to review the information and the Committee would take action on the report at the following meeting.

The Chairperson adjourned the meeting.