Public Administration Management Act: Department's briefing; National School of Government on new curriculum;Public Service Commissioner vacancies: Adoption of Committee report

Public Service and Administration

05 August 2015
Chairperson: Ms B Mabe (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Department of Public Service and Administration briefed the Committee on the Public Administration Management Act, which, having undergone some changes since first conceptualised, was now intended to be an overarching piece of legislation that would help to deal with challenges in the present public administration, bring mechanisms for equitable distribution of resources across the spheres and to streamline the implementation of constitutional values. It was designed to meet the National Development Plan needs. Although passed, it was not yet in operation as several regulations would be implemented incrementally. The Public Administration Ethics, Integrity and Disciplinary Technical Assistance Unit would be created, to assist and support institutions with matters of misconduct by creating capacity for misconduct proceedings and strengthen government oversight function. The Act also broadened the prohibition on doing business with the state, to include spouses of state employees. It provided for Individual transfers and secondments; the criteria and procedure for transfers. It would also pave the way for the minimum norms and standards in the public service and municipalities. The Office of Standards and Compliance was to be established, and the National School of Government would be a higher education institution. The Department took Members through the sections of the Act. It was stressed that regulations to be established would require consultation, including with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and several aspects would also involve the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, particularly in relation to transfers of employees.

Members suggested that, since the presentation documents did not reach the Committee on time, questions should be asked and responded to in writing, but the Department did respond to some issues immediately. Members asked about the numbers of declarations of officials doing business with the state, updated lists of disclosures of financial interests, and asked what criteria would be taken into account in respect of secondments and transfers. They stressed that recognition of prior learning, not paper qualifications alone, must be taken into account at the National School of Government. It was suggested that perhaps the Public Servants Association could assist in establishing independent bodies that could deal with unfair treatment and grievances arising from disciplinary hearings, and felt that strong leadership should be shown in enforcing consequences. They wanted to hear more about the training, intentions and how non-performing managers would be dealt with. They noted that SALGA had raised cost concerns, and it was suggested that road shows would be needed.

The Principal of the National School of Government (NSG) briefed the Committee on the new curriculum that was intended to create the capabilities to implement the National Development Plan. Capacity development required public servants to understand the broader contexts and to see the communities in which they worked. In answer to some of the priorities, the NSG had a Gender Mainstreaming programme and a Breaking Barriers to Entry programme, and it would work to raise employment, through faster economic growth, to improve quality of education, skills development and innovation, and to build a capable state which can play a developmental transformative role. This required skilled public servants who were committed to the public good and who delivered consistent and high quality service to the public. When developing the curricula, new recruits were inducted and orientated, reorientation took place, although it was recognised that NSG could not provide all technical skills necessary to fulfil core state functions. NSG had open recruitment, which was less predictable than other countries, but practicality and relevance were vital, and mixed methods of learning would be used, and in-service education for all non-management and administrative staff employees would be critical to ensure all possible learning opportunities at all levels. There were systems of examination for entry into the public service. More detail was given on the various programmes and their aims.

Members asked how long it was likely to take to realise a fully professional public sector, and asked for more detail on the costing. It was suggested that the NSG had to bridge the gaps where public servants at certain pay levels could not afford to do masters degrees. A list of municipalities was requested, so that Members could assess who had undergone training, and it was agreed that the Committee would in particular engage with those under administration. There were some concerns that the curriculum and Act were not yet fully aligned. It was suggested that perhaps some of the funding formerly allocated to the Sector Education and Training Authority could be transferred back to the NSG.

The Committee adopted the report of the sub-committee recommending names to fill the Commissioner vacancies on the Public Service Commission. One Member requested that an oversight visit be paid to the Government Employees Pension Fund to examine the causes of delay of pension payouts. 

Meeting report

Opening announcements
The apologies of Mr the Minister of Public Service and Administration and Deputy Minister, Ms Ayanda Dlodlo, were noted. In addition, the apologies of the Minister in the Presidency, Mr Jeff Radebe and Deputy Minister Mr Buti Manamela were recorded.

It was noted that Dr MJ Cardo (DA) was replaced in the Committee by Ms P van Damme (DA)

Public Administration Management Act: Department of Public Service and Administration briefing
Before the briefing commenced, Mr J McGluwa (DA) said that he did not receive the necessary documents for the meeting. He urged that documents be sent within a reasonable time to ensure healthy discussion and debate.

Mr Mashwahle Diphofa, Director General, Department of Public Service and Administration, apologised and said that the Department (or DPSA) would sort out this issue and ensure that documents were submitted on time.

Mr Diphofa gave a brief historical background of the Public Administration Management Act (PAMA). The PAMA was signed into law by the President in December 2014, after being drafted late in 2008, in line with Chapter 10 of the Constitution.

Ms Lynette Sing, Chief Director: Integrated Public Sector Reforms, DPSA, took Members through the PAMA, setting out the objectives, content and describing the Department's preparation for the implementation of this legislation. She described PAMA as "a first for the country" and a most significant Public Administration initiative. Prior to the PAMA coming into effect, the DPSA would be facilitating the process of developing regulations, and the regulations would be gazetted and applied incrementally.

The initial plan, when drafting the Act, was to replace both the Public Services Act and the Municipal Systems Act, but in August 2013 it was decided rather to create a framework that would cover the existing legislation.

She spoke about the challenges for the DPSA, noting that progress, in the public service, to getting clean audits was slow, as indicated by the Auditor General South Africa (AGSA). There had been little movement from the low level of compliance over the last three years. Efforts to address the root causes had not had the desired effect, due to a lack of capacity. There was also a lack of consequences for poor performance, and poor management of discipline.

It was hoped that PAMA would respond to these challenges, by introducing enabling policies and legal frameworks. It would bring mechanisms for equitable distribution of resources across all spheres of government, and this would be highlighted in the secondment and transfer policies. It would streamline constitutional values throughout the spheres of government. The PAMA also aimed to respond to the National Development Plan (NDP) needs. In addition, it would deal with the concerns of the Members of Parliament including addressing the position of officials that were doing business with the state. 

Ms Sing highlighted the constitutional context of the PAMA by quoting the relevant sections 151 to 197 of the Constitution.

The Fourth Parliament's resolutions in relation to the public service were summarised and this was reflected in the PAMA framework legislation, which included ethics, integrity and disciplinary measures, prohibition on employees from doing business with the state, minimum norms and standards in key dimensions of public administration for both the public service and municipalities. It included the establishment of the Office of Standards and Compliance, and National School of Government as a higher education institution.

Ms Sing explained that section 20 of the PAMA provided that different dates may be determined for different provisions of the Act or categories of institutions to come into effect and this would allow the President to declare different sections of the Act operational at different times, or to target categories of institutions. All PAMA provisions would require regulations before the Act could be enforced. A staggered approach of phasing PAMA into the public service and then local government will be taken. 

Regulations affecting municipalities must be done with the agreement of the Ministers responsible for local government, and finance, and public services and administration. South African Local Government Association (SALGA) concurrence would also be required and draft regulations would need to be published for public comment.

Ms Sing described the content of the PAMA by explaining its purpose, and explained some key definitions contained in section 1 of the Act.

She expanded on individual transfers and secondments (sections 5 to 7) and the criteria and procedure of transfers. The aim was to avoid officials simply moving employees with whom they were dissatisfied to other departments.

Section 8 addressed the prohibition on doing business with the state. It was a blank prohibition and failure to comply was made an offence. Any individuals guilty of breaching this section could be fined or imprisoned for a maximum of five years.

Ms Sing highlighted the changes under disclosure of financial interests, and said the amendment was to include “spouse and person living with that person as if they were married to each other”. Failure to comply with this provision was regarded as misconduct.

Capacity development and training provisions (sections 10 to13) included the fact that the Head of the institution would be required to develop the human resources capacity through education and training of its employees, and to establish the National School of Government (NSG) as an institution of higher learning.

Section 14 of PAMA put an onus on the head of institutions to acquire and use information and communication technology to provide cost effective services, enhance delivery of services, improve efficiency, secure information systems and improve access to the electronic services. Ms Sing noted that there had been significant improvement in this area in the departments.

Section 15 of PAMA will establish the Public Administration Ethics, Integrity and Disciplinary Technical Assistance Unit (EIDTAU). This unit’s functions, amongst others, will be to assist and support institutions with matters of misconduct by creating capacity for misconduct proceedings and strengthen government oversight function.

Section 16 of PAMA allowed ministers to prescribe the minimum norms and standards of public administration. The objective was to allow for uniformity in norms and standards across public administration.

Section 17 of PAMA established the Office of Standards and Compliance. The rationale was focused primarily on providing technical support, advisory services and intervention support to the public administration, to ensure compliance with the applicable norms and standards. The  Minister would determine its functions and powers.

The Minister was also now empowered to create regulations by section 18 of the Act. A full and detailed consultation process would, however, be required, including consultation with relevant ministers, regulations were to be approved by South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the opportunity given for public comment.

Mrs Sing explained that the syntax analysis analysed each sentence and determined the scope of work to be done. It would be obligatory for each institution to comply with section 195 of the Constitution and even though other legislature existed that talked to such principles, PAMA bridged existing gaps in those laws.

DPSA believed there should be a policy placing limitations on the remuneration and conditions of service in relation to transfers. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) would do a syntax analysis on the legislation on transfers of employees to municipalities, in conjunction with DPSA, to determine the impact of the new legislation on local government.

Ms Sing reiterated the fact that PAMA had broadened the prohibition on doing business with the state, as the prohibition would now extend also to spouses of state employees. She said that there was back-office work required still to create systems for the detection of offending employees. Disclosure of financial interest would now be required from all employees, according to PAMA. DPSA would thus need to ensure system readiness for proper disclosures. She stated that there were about 1.3 million employees in the public service and around 275 employees in the municipalities.
           
Chapter 4 states that capacity and training is to be done through the NSG and in accordance with the provisions in the Higher Education Act. The process to establish NSG as a higher education institution was provided for in the Higher Education Act. She highlighted that section 11 already contemplated a future establishment of the NSG as a higher education institution.

Ms Sing explained that the Ethics, Integrity and Disciplinary Technical Assistance Unit was currently incubated within the DPSA, until it was ready for full operation as a separate unit.
 
The work area for minimum norms and standards was to establish a unit that would be responsible for developing norms and standards according to section 15. Collaboration with this unit would be critical. Overall, Ms Sing re-emphasised the importance of consultations and agreements as a requirement for promulgation of regulations.

She ended off by giving a roadmap of the project management and implementation plan. She said that even though DPSA was heading the process, it was working in collaboration with different departments and an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) would be established to facilitate the collaborations.

Mr  Diphofa concluded the presentation by emphasising key areas. He said that there were areas of the Act where regulations were still required, and the process of developing regulations had started. Secondly, there were areas that required that the DPSA develop business cases for the units that would be established. Thirdly, DPSA was also incubating these developing institutions, therefore work in assisting the departments with cases of misconduct, as the EIDTAU, had already commenced. An internal pool of experts was assigned to different departments who needed assistance. Fourthly, the DPSA was engaged in consultations with other institutions like SALGA. Lastly, it was conducting research and analysis of the norms and standards, identifying and closing existing gaps.

Discussion
Mr J McGluwa(DA) requested permission to submit questions in writing to the DPSA, due to late submission of the presentation. He referred to page 6 and asked for the number of cases of officials doing business with the state. He asked if the Director-General was happy with the number of declarations so far and whether the DPSA had a list of officials who were in business with the state.

Mr McGluwa asked for clarity on the provision that allowed the President to bring different sections of the Act into operation at different times. He asked if there was an updated list of the disclosures of financial interest. Lastly, he wanted to know if there was any time frame to deal with the regulations for those doing business with the state.

Ms Z Dlamini-Dubazana (ANC) thought it critical that the regulations should also encapsulate that it might not only be individuals who were making a request to be transferred, but also authorities who might request individual transfers to unblock bottlenecks. She was also concerned that the provision that stated that “conditions of service may not be less favourable than those on which the employee was employed immediately before the transfer” could well create false hope to employees. She said that a transfer may be to remote areas where there was need for the skill. She believed it was critical to allow for consideration, if need did arise, for an authority to second employees to rural areas with remuneration.

She suggested that individuals in the public sector benefiting from doing business with the state be given time to resign or to conclude business with state and then decide if they wanted to continue as public servant or as business person.

She requested that the DG look into eliminating duplication when using the terms standards, norms, principles, ethics, integrity, values, etc.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana defined higher education, and then explained that the public sector had people who went through "Bantu education" who had since moved up the ranks and had now acquired scarce skills which were necessary resources. She said if NSG was established as a higher education institution, a definition of higher education within the right context needed to be provided. She urged that the focus be on skill and not paper qualifications.

Ms V Mente–Nqweniso (EFF) aired her concern about the pace of implementation and asked if there were set timeframes for the regulations to be done. She agreed with Mr McGluwa that the Committee needed to have insight into the regulations. She asked if the regulations gave clarity when referring to local government and public sector.

Ms Mente-Nqweniso said that there should not be generalisations when referring to section 195(1) and 195(2) as there was a belief that the definitions did not relate to public service agents. She believed that they need to be mentioned specifically. She also wanted to know if transfers regulations dealt with political interface as there were instances where the political sphere forced redeployment of an individual to a different department.

Ms Mente-Nqweniso said she was worried about the enforcement of failure to comply with the prohibition on doing business with the state. She asked if the DPSA was going to have an independent body for disciplinary hearings. She also suggested that the regulations should clarify if guilty persons could be redeployed. Lastly, she asked if the DPSA had considered consulting with the Public Servants Association (PSA) to establish independent bodies that could deal with unfair treatment and grievances arising from disciplinary hearings.

Mr S Motau (DA) referred to the challenge of a lack of consequences for poor performance, lack of discipline, poor management of skills, high turnover of management and technical staff. He said there was a culture of comrades protecting each other, whether they were right or wrong. He wanted to know how the DPSA believed that these gaps would be bridged.

The Chairperson asked for a practical example, saying that Mr Motau’s statement did not sit well with her. She asked that he must qualify his statement, and said that she would not like any blunt, irresponsible statements to be made and quoted by the media.

Mr Motau clarified by saying the DPSA had identified a lack of consequences as a challenge. He wanted to know the reason for this. He would like to see a change in culture, so that comrades would call out those other who had gone beyond the rules. He gave an example that, during the apartheid era, comrades never publicly dangled each other's foibles out to dry. He wanted to see comrades properly assessing whether their colleagues were serving the best interest of the public.

Ms Z Dlamini-Dubuzane (ANC) said her understanding was that at this stage the Department was inducting the Committee into the provisions of the Act. She suggested that it would be better for the Committee to take part ownership and say what they expected to see from the Act and in regulations, and not expect the Department to solve problems.

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) asked that the DPSA to bring a roadmap that was clearer on the financial implications. She mentioned that the Committee was responsible for making recommendations. She said that she expected to hear about other role players, in DPSA's response to Committee queries. She would like the Department to show its relationship with other entities, to illustrate how they all intended to assist government in capping misbehaviour.

Ms Lesoma said she would like the NSG to talk about its intentions and how it would be dealing with non performing managers. She asked how many times they would be inducted and trained and wanted to see the issue of performance contracts clarified where there were consequences for non-performance.

Mr McGluwa wanted clarity on what aspects the DPSA would be consulting with the other entities, for the NSG establishment process. Secondly, he reminded the Committee that in the past, SALGA had raised cost concerns, and he wanted to know who now would bear the cost where secondments are concerned.

Ms Lesoma requested that a roadshow be held, to take senior management through the Act.

The Chairperson said there was an earlier request to give the Department time to go back and give accurate responses in writing. She said that the delegates may respond now, but the Committee wanted written responses on everything.

Mr Mashwahle Diphofa (DG) said that Ms Dlamini-Dubazana’s concerns were noted and taken into consideration. He said the Act was not intended to stop transfers of skills but it provided for proper procedures that avoided transfers without consent

He said there was ongoing work done by the Public Service Commission (PSC) regarding public servants doing business with the state and disclosures were due before the end of April every year. He knew that the analysis of the latest round of disclosures was taking place. He highlighted that the current Act did not require that senior managers disclose their business with the state but there were already procedures for them to disclose now and a risk analysis will be done. He said specific details would become available once the Act came into operation. For the moment, the Department only had figures on how many servants had disclosed and how many had stated they were involved with companies doing business with the state. He said that the PSC was looking at companies on its databases, from different departments, and comparing this information against disclosures received.

He clarified the reason the DPSA was consulting with the Department of Higher Education (DHE), as NSG will be established in terms of the Higher Education Act. DHE was the custodian of that Act and therefore must be consulted on the procedures.

Mr Diphofa said the Department would respond in writing on issues like providing a road map and consequences of misconduct. He mentioned that part of the problem, when dealing with misconduct, was the lack of capacity to deal with the disciplinary process and follow-up of charges. Technical assistance was now being provided for in PAMA, as a pool of experts would be provided in the unit to deploy to departments who did not have capacity. He would elaborate in writing.

Mr Diphofa said the involvement of the Public Service Commission was to conduct independent investigations and he would again elaborate on the process in his written response. He reminded the Committee that discipline management is an executive function. Outside entities may assist with investigations, but could not run with discipline management. He would also clarify roles in writing.

The Chairperson said that the Committee expects the written responses to be emailed through to the Committee Secretary within seven days.

New Curriculum Programme for the Public Sector: Implementing the National Development Plan Goals: National School of Government briefing

The Chairperson congratulated Mr Richard Levin on his deployment from the Public Service Commission to the National School of Government (NSG). She hoped he would promote women and prepare a woman to take over as principal in due course.

Prof Richard Levin, Principal, NSG, stated that his presentation would focus on how the NSG was applying curriculum solutions to create the necessary capabilities to implement the National Development Plan (NDP). He pointed to the critical area, Chapter 13 of the NDP, which set out the aim to build a capable developmental state, by interventions that positively altered the country's developmental trajectories. He said that capacity development required public servants to understand the broader contexts and to see the communities in which they worked. The NDP talked about the importance of developing people. The PSA Batho Pele programme required public servants to position themselves in a way that they could better understand the development needs of the communities they served.

NDP set out a number of priorities that were linked to key priority areas of government. It gave rise to gender and youth developmental needs. The NSG had a Gender Mainstreaming programme and a Breaking Barriers to Entry programme which created awareness, understanding and knowledge amongst young graduates on how they could become public servants. The NSG’s role under the NDP priority areas was to raise employment, through faster economic growth, to improve quality of education, skills development and innovation, and to build a capable state which can play a developmental transformative role. He explained that this required skilled public servants who were committed to the public good and who delivered consistent and high quality service to the public.

Prof Levin explained that, in order to build a professional public service with well-run departments staffed by skilled servants, there were significant implications for the public service curricula. When developing curricula, different levels of operation were considered. For example, new recruits were inducted and orientated. The NSG also did reorientation, to ensure the translation of principles behind the Constitution into objectives. He indicated that the NSG could not provide all technical skills necessary to fulfil core state functions, especially the professional skills where there was a shortage. He said the entity must speak to DPSA to ensure professional development of public servants and technical skills. He believed that it was important for public servants to understand the community in which they worked, because blanket solutions by the public administration do not work and adaptable programmes for each area would be necessary. Prof Levin also added that there needed to be a long-term career path on learning and development.

He explained that NSG has open recruitment which is less predictable as compared to other countries. This poses as a challenge in the current system. said that when developing curricula, they must provide capabilities for public servants to be able to rise in the ranks.
He mentioned that focus points in the curriculum must deal with the issue of practicality and relevance and it was what would distinguish the NSG from other education institutions. The NSG needed also to ensure that what was taught was able to be applied to jobs. Mixed methods of learning had to be used. He said that Continuous Professional Development is crucial.  Many institutions had mushroomed that needed monitoring to ensure that they are contributing to professional development.

Prof Levin said that the school had created programmes around the focus areas of education and learning, ranging from pre-service education and learning, the Breaking Barriers to Entry graduate programme to best place graduates. He believed that induction and reorientation should be top down, from DG level to entry level of public servants. In-service education for all non-management and administrative staff employees would be critical to ensure all possible learning opportunities at all levels.

Prof Levin briefly went through the curriculum programmes. He highlighted that the Breaking Barriers to Entry programme seeks to develop the public service as the career option of choice with graduates. He said the Induction programme was not a one-size-fits all but was targeting entry at different levels and there are systems of examination for entry in public service. There was a focus on frontline staff (Batho Pele) being the core face of service delivery so that citizens should receive best service. He differentiated between customers and citizens. Customers had a choice of stores, but citizens did not have the same choice of municipalities to offer services. Thus, citizens had rights, whereas customers had choices. The service citizens received was what formed their definition of government.

He explained the Foundation Management Development Programme. Supervisory roles started low in the public service hence it was important to prepare people for their role. In-service Education and learning was related to management functions and the core of public administration functions such as finance, human resources, monitoring and evaluation, supply chain management, and others. He said it was important to understand how Human Resource Management was developed in this country, to mean managers had discipline functions. The system only worked in the way it was designed if all parties played their role. It would fails when managers were reluctant to deal with discipline and referred it to Human Resources, who could not implement it.

For this reason also, a compulsory course on Delegation Accreditation was to be introduced, especially because the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and PAMA set out high degrees of delegation, and without understanding roles and responsibilities, it would not be effective. The Emerging Management Development programme, Executive Management Development programme and the Accelerated Development programme all spoke to the leadership goals of the NDP. These also targeted women and people with disabilities to prepare them for senior management roles.

The oversight requirement of the NDP gave rise to oversight programmes that would enhance the quality of leadership at a local government level.

Since NDP had identified career pathing as important, the NSG developed a matrix of qualifications, in partnership with South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), DPSA and the Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority (PSSETA). The School had a critical issue of producing graduates and ensuring effectiveness in what they learned.

Prof Levin said the NSG was building itself as a Centre of Excellence by developing an effective, professional and competent work force, for improved performance of all public servants.

The School would be looking at piloting new programmes, over and above existing ones, that focused on the people whom they were servicing, their conditions and the desired effect of actions. Public servants also needed to be adaptable in problem solving. Another pilot programme would deal with having a hybrid funding model. He said DPSA was looking at multi-mode delivery programmes; for example online learning, face to face and blended (mix of both) methods, as well as a mix of mandatory and voluntary programmes. Mandatory programmes needed to have a certification of completion.

He then named the other planned pilots as Government Leadership Platform, Performance Management Development System, Induction CIP level 13-14, and a partnership with China. He briefly explained each programme’s aim (see attached presentation for details).

In conclusion, Prof Levin said that the entire system of learning and development was aimed at improving public service quality, public servants' development, working to a uniform public service, and partnerships with local and international academic and private sector institutions. He believed that emerging as a centre of excellence would allows the NSG the opportunity to design the programmes effectively.

Discussion
The Chairperson asked how long it would take to realise a professional public sector, and when the plan would be costed as it would affect their budget. She said she was otherwise pleased with the NSG’s work so far.

Ms V Mente-Nqweniso (EFF) raised a concern about the qualifications given to public servants. She had discovered that level 13-16 awarded higher education certification, level 9-12 awarded advanced diploma certification, and 1-8 awarded certificates. Her understanding was that the NSG was intended to bridge the skills gap and must give public servants the opportunity to obtain the highest level of education. She said that as this was a paper-based qualification, it was not satisfactory. She said it was known that those at level 1-8 could not afford to do masters qualifications, and therefore, NSG should bridge that gap.

Mr McGluwa said he was a product of NSG programmes himself. He believed the public servants did not make use of the institutions and that there was a lack of inspiration and improvement in taking collective responsibility that the public service would be in good working condition He requested a list of municipalities, to assess who had undergone training, then suggested that the Committee should engage, especially with those that were under administration. The Committee needed to do visits wherever there were concerns and this would ensure growth and improvement.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana reminded the NSG that is was operating in terms of specific legislation. She said the curriculum and the Act were not fully aligned, and that the focus was not on what was set out in the Act. She had also picked up a worrying indications of poor attitude of the public servants, even if they were trained. She cited the example of the Cuban commander Castro, who used colleges, and not universities, to develop his people’s skills, and said that this was the reason why there was high integrity there. She believed the NSG needed to have a curriculum of entry for post matric students. Her opinion was that there was not xenophobia, but rather an economic battle at the lower level, because people lacked skills to manage their spaza shops. She said the objective of the School was correct but the curriculum was incorrect and must be revised to address Chapter 2.

Prof Levin responded that the pilots had already been costed. There was a new financial model and the NSG firstly wanted to test that, and then return to Parliament and funders and engage with them again.

In response to Ms Mente-Nqweniso and Ms Dlamini-Dubazana, he said there was an attempt by the School to do career pathing and how it matched with qualifications, and that was how the matrix of qualifications was devised. He said the problems that were raised were fundamental and referred to an old White Paper on Human Resources that dealt with codes of remuneration. This White Paper revealed that there was no balance between qualifications and experience (bringing up the issue of Recognition of Prior Learning and experience). He thought that, underlying the matrix, there were a lot of problems and assumptions but all that the matrix was actually saying was that because the NDP requires qualifications before a person could progress, there had been an attempt to break down salary structure to see the qualifications required for advancement. It had been a challenging exercise, and what the Committee had suggested would be considered. He pointed out that the problem with the approach lay with application and experience and how managers deployed staff into communities. He believed that was what was going to make the public service effective, rather than how many of the public service employees held degrees. NSG would be having discussions on the matrix; it had consulted with critical players but it would be reviewed.

In response to Mr McGluwa, Prof Levin recalled that during his time when he was the Director General of the DPSA, the HR Connect system was designed, and that was fundamental for this issue. In order to understand the capacity of the state, there needed to be a skills profile of everyone in the system. There were technical reasons why the HR Connect system was not rolled out. There was also an issue about the length of time needed when first capturing details, although the annual updates would be quick, and so the system would be fluid.

Prof Levin said that he would look into Mr McGluwa's request to get a list.

Prof Levin gave an example that China had a profile of everyone in the public service, that was used for deployments, and it worked well. He said part of the NSG’s new function would be in deploying public servants and they had agreed to create a forum where he would raise this issue.

Prof Levin explained that financing for the pilot programmes would be drawn from different funding streams, partnership with PSSETA, cost recovery, and donors. The process was being finalised and roll out would start in the next few weeks.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana recalled that during the budget allocations process, the NSG was requested to transfer R39 million to PSSETA. She said she believed that it should be transferred back to the School.
 
Public Service Commission interviews for vacancy of Commissioner: Adoption
The Chairperson moved to the request to adopt the report of the sub-Committee, dated 14 July 2015, relating to the interviews in order to fill the post of the Public Service Commissioner.  The report was to be kept confidential until it was formally presented to the Portfolio Committee.

It was noted that the sub-Committee had developed standard questions and scoring board, and then conducted the interviews and deliberations. There was no contestation, and Members had reached a consensus and scored the candidates. There would now be verification of qualifications through SAQA, with the consent of candidates. The Chairperson had received a report confirming that the two recommended candidates had security clearance. The Committee was now waiting for the SAQA confirmation before taking recommendations to Parliament.

The outcome of the interviews was as follows: Ms Gwala withdrew her candidacy. The highest scoring candidate was Mr Ben Mthembu, followed by Professor Patrick Fitzgerald, Dr Bruno Luthuli, Professor Serge Paruk, and Ms Xolisa Hloma. The Committee recommended the selection of  Mr Ben Mthembu, Professor Patrick Fitgerald, Dr Bruno Luthuli, and Ms Hloma in that order. The names for the first and second options would be the names taken forward.

The Chairperson asked. and received confirmation from Members, that this draft Committee Report was a true reflection of events.

Mr McGluwa wanted to know why the SAQA confirmation was done.

The Chairperson responded that it was just to satisfy the Committee and to avoid embarrassment, especially because the Committee was doing oversight on this matter.

Mr McGluwa suggested that the recommendation be put through in its current form, and if the confirmation was not satisfactory, then the name be withdrawn.

The Chairperson agreed. She said a response was expected by the end of the day.

Members adopted the Report.

Other business
Ms Mente-Nqweniso indicated that she would not be available for three months.

She also wanted to raise an area of concern, and to request an oversight visit to the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), as a result of a delay of pension payouts. She said people had lost homes and lives over this issue. Her own personal experience led her to discover that her file was unattended to, and she was thus concerned about how ordinary citizens may be suffering. She suggested that the Committee conduct an oversight visit to assess turn-around times, communication strategies, and other issues.

The Chairperson agreed that, when Ms Mente-Nqweniso returned to Parliament, a physical visit would be in order, but until then, the Committee would be calling on the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF) to  present to the Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.

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