Council for the Built Environment, Agrément SA on their 2016 Strategic & Annual Performance plans, Deputy Minister present

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed the Deputy Minister of Public Works

Council for the Built Environment (CBE) 2016/2017 Annual Performance Plan briefing
Ms Priscilla Mdlalose, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Council for the Built Environment , introduced her delegation, consisting of Mr Isaac Nkosi, Chairperson of Council, Advocate Pieter Fourie, Manager: Legal Services, and Mr Clifton Changfoot, Chief Financial Officer.

Mr Isaac Nkosi, Chairperson, Council for the Built Environment, recognised that he, as the Chairperson of the Council (or CBE), is fully accountable to the Committee and appreciates its oversight in holding the Department of Public Works (DPW or the Department) and all its entities accountable. CBE appreciates the advice, comments, critiques and inputs of the Portfolio Committee and takes them very seriously.

Mr Nkosi articulated that CBE is fully committed in fulfilling its mandate as outlined in the CBE Act, NO 43 of 2000. CBE had the space,  the time and a critical role to play in ensuring that government policies and priorities are implemented in the Built Environment. In addition, CBE has a responsibility to make sure that adequate skills are built and retained for a transformed Built Environment. The CBE also must ensure that well researched and well informed relevant matters are presented to the government and all the built environment stakeholders. He spoke of the significance of regulating professionals in the built environment as a means of making sure that the public is well served whilst also safeguarding and catering to the interests of professionals. CBE recognised the need for, and was fully committed to, transformation and was ready to lead and drive the agenda towards this in the built environment. It was already working with various stakeholders such as the different spheres of government, all the built environment professional councils and associations, state owned entities and institutions of higher learning.

Ms Mdlalose took the Committee through the vision and mission (see attached document) and said that its direction was informed by the President's State of the Nation Address 2015, in particular the Skills Development Plan and Operation Phakisa - which were aimed at economic growth in South Africa. CBE is responsible for professionals who contribute greatly to the economy of the country. Another factor borne in mind when drafting the strategic plan was the updated policy statement from the Minister of Public Works which encouraged the Department and all its entities to move from ‘stabilisation’ to ‘efficiency enhancement’. This will support service delivery in the country.

CBE has a mandate to coordinate and facilitate, so that strengthening its collaborations with other entities and stakeholders will allow for transformation in the built environment to take place and increase efficiency. She also mentioned radical economic transformation and the improvement of service delivery as outlined in the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2014-19 strategy themes, as a factor in CBE’s Strategic Planning Process and APP formulation.

She outlined the dates of the draft and final plans. She noted that the strategic overview emphasised serving public interests, sustainable built environment, developing human resources, meeting national goals, ensuring health and safety and sound governance in the built environment profession. It also must ensure that there is a uniform model of norms and guidelines set by professional councils throughout the built environment, and CBE is committed to making sure that strategic overview is realised.

Ms Mdlalose noted that she had only outlined four situational analyses in the presentation, but there were other areas in South Africa on the issues of built environment. She mentioned that slow economic growth was an issue to CBE because CBE depended on the built environment industry to ensure it placed its candidates so that they could gain relevant skills and training. When there was little or no work in this environment broadly, the candidates could not find work or get internships and learnerships that they needed to complete their higher education studies. CBE wanted to work better and support municipalities to guarantee infrastructure projects and to bridge the gap regarding the need for technical skills in municipalities.

She discussed the challenge of transformation in the built environment by stating that to date, the number of registered black built environment professions was still under 26% of all professionals, and this showed that the transformation agenda was not occurring at a fast pace. She suggested that such commitments to transformation needed to start not at professional level, but as far down as primary school, so that the country is able to produce enough Mathematics and Science learners who will then be able to get access into university and the working world within the built environment. Matriculation results for Mathematics and Science prompted CBE to go back to Grade 6 to evaluate what was happening in lower levels of education and thus bring about the necessary transformation.

She tabled the organogram and said that six key additional personnel had been added, to enable CBE to meet its mandate. The first was the Company Secretary. Although this was key to the mandate, the size of the CBE did not allow for this appointment so that at the moment its legal office was attending to the company secretarial work. A communications and stakeholder relations specialist was to be appointed to establish better relationships with other stakeholders and entities. A senior research would fulfil CBE's role to give well-researched advice to government as well as to guide the organisation. A paralegal was to be appointed, because CBE has a responsibility to be aware of the law and operate within the borders of the law. Two built environment workplace training specialists were also now named, to deal wit the transformation agenda. One additional general office assistant was now added. Currently, the general office assistant was on a six month contract, with lack of job security.

She noted that the CBE had not changed its priority areas and goals for 2016/17.  Programme 1 deals with government policies and priorities and it contributes to outcomes 4, 6 and 12 in Government’s National Development Plan (NDP). This programme is aiming at job creation, health and safety in construction and environmental sustainability. Ms Mdlalose mentioned that by March 2017, six Memorandum of Agreements with Built Environment Professional Councils (BEPCs) will be signed to facilitate engagements with Built Environment academic curricula. Other aims included obtaining an unqualified audit, zero irregular expenditure and developing an IT strategy.

Programme 2 covers skills for infrastructure delivery and it contributes to outcome 5 in the NDP. Under this programme, 450 learners from a range of Grade 10 – 12 learners will be enrolled in Maths and Science support programmes, 50 Built Environment graduates will be given workplace training, a transformation strategy will be developed and 100 interns will connected to companies that will train them. Ms Mdlalose states that this will address the behaviour in the workplace whereby interns are asked to do work that no one else wants to do instead of teaching them skills that they should be learning.

Ms Mdlalose noted that in order to make CBE’s Mathematics and Science programme work, extra funding had been given by National Treasury (NT) to increase the number of learners in this financial year. Usually, CBE can only fund 150 learners but there had been an increase in this year to 450 learners and an extension to other provinces, including .Kwa-Zulu Natal, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. This was an improvement from last year when CBE was only working with the Northern Cape only.

Ms Mdlalose said that she fully recognised that 50 built environment graduates being given workplace training was not enough, but the limitations in the budget did not allow for CBE to take on any more graduates. CBE is working with other entities to ensure that those that cannot be catered for in CBE are catered for somewhere else. She noted that CBE had presented on transformation before but the current model differed because the CBE was working with very many more stakeholders this time, thus making CBE’s transformation policies “doable”.

Programme 3 dealt with built environment research, information and advisory services, with a focus on research, done both for knowledge production and for implementation. Programme 4 deals with regulation and oversight of six BEPCs and it contributes to outcome 12 of the National Development Plan. Ms Mdlalose said that if the professionals are not regulated, the country will have unregistered people  practising, which will lead to unaccountability.

Ms Mdlalose then spoke of the Special Project, which had started as a result of the meeting in Parliament between the  CBE, Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and the Competition Commission (CC) and read out the main points (see attached slide for full details)

She then proceeded to outline the budget of the CBE, which she tabled, but did not explain in depth (see attached slides). Briefly, the CBE had a budget of R45.453 million, and that the organisational costs, for salary and wages were R20.722 million. Other spending was accounted for in lease payments, goods and services.

Mr Clifton Changfoot, Chief Financial Officer, Council of the Built Environment, read out the line items on the budget and said that it was in line with the allocations under the Estimates of National Expenditure. Programme 1 had a higher budget because it included the administrative costs including rental, utilities, repairs and maintenance.

Ms Mdlalose concluded that CBE is dedicated to ensuring economic growth, capacitating the state and ensuring that transformation in the built environment is realised.

Discussion
Ms P Adams (ANC) asked why there is still an Acting Chief Executive Officer within CBE and not a full time Chief Executive Officer.  She asked if the vacancy of CEO  is currently advertised and when it would be filled. She asked how the vacancy rate of 28% affected  service delivery. She wanted to know if there was a staff member or group of individuals in CBE who had been hired specifically to address the transformation agenda. She would have liked to see all the Board leadership present at such meetings since they  were trained with taxpayers’ money and should therefore account to and serve the public. The DPW and its entities should not just preach transformation, they should be practitioners of transformation. She accepted that she was getting quite emotional on the subject, but this was that CBE had said exactly the same things two years previously yet very little had actually happened.

Ms Adams felt that slide 5 of the presentation is vague and wanted to know exactly how ‘knowledge sharing’ will be done. She said that Programme 1 and 2 were due to be implemented by 31 March 2017, and wanted to know how CBE would ensure that this date was met.

 Ms Adams cited the 100 work placements for interns set out on slide13 and asked what CBE viewed as “an internship”. She asked what would happen to the placed graduates upon getting an internship and if CBE would continue to support them further. She recommended that there should be more specifics outlined and put in place by CBE to ensure that transformation actually occurred.

Ms D Kohler-Barnard (DA) asked why CBE has not answered the questions asked by the Portfolio Committee in the previous sitting on 9 March, when the delegation had claimed that the suspended Chief Executive Officer (CEO) claimed to represent herself. She then asked if the CBE and the suspended CEO were currently in legal talks. This matter had been dragging on for some time and she was not happy with it. She wanted more information on the provincial expenditure, and whether, if the provincial bodies failed to spend, the money would come back to the central CBE pool. She asked how beneficiaries and provinces are chosen for the Mathematics and Science projects and programmes, and what the budget is for the projects. She also asked for full details including the name of the suspended CEO.

Ms E Masehela (ANC) asked what practical interventions CBE will follow to ensure that Maths and science improve at the Basic Education level. She asked when the other five provinces that CBE is not helping would receive assistance from the CBE. She asked how the audit would be conducted and how training for staff would be done if there was no budget for it specifically allocated. She also queried the vacancy rate, especially given the number of unemployed graduates in South Africa.

Ms S Kopane (DA) asked what work has been done to attract graduates to register with CBE and if there is a register or database that CBE has for graduates to help them to find work in the built environment sector. She also asked how CBE will strengthen the skills of graduates registered with CBE, particularly those doing their internships, and how CBE would ensure that they were not used for menial tasks, but were given the chance to gain more skills.

Dr Q Madlopha (ANC) asked how far CBE was with the interventions on the CEO and how this was affecting the CBE. She wanted to know more about the extent of the assistance given by CBE to learners from grade 8 to 12 and whether it also continued to tertiary and post-graduation levels. She understood that CBE faced a lot of challenges. Dr Madlopha asked how the professional councils had transformed to ensure that graduates did not get asked to do work not in the job descriptions, repeating that she would not like to see them doing menial tasks, and if the mentors who were mentioned at the last meeting had now been appointed to deal with the matters, and to expand  access to those who previously did not have the opportunities to work in the built environment.

Mr Jeremy Cronin, Deputy Minister of Public Works, responded that the CEO was suspended by the Board and that there are currently talks ongoing about possible lifting or suspending that. The CBE is a regulatory entity. The DPW did want to review how the entities were working, as it was not entirely happy with the way in which matters had been going in some of the entities. The whole suspension and how it had been handled showed how much CBE and DPW had to work on their structural issues.
The Deputy Minister stated that CBE can only do so much with regard to training because it is a regulatory structure and not a training academy. He emphasised to the Committee that coordination and training is not the sole mandate of CBE, and therefore the pressure put on CBE to do this posed the risk of compromising the CBE.

Ms Mdlalose noted that the answers to questions posed at the last meeting had been prepared, but these had not yet been sent to the Committee. The answers will be sent soon. The suspended CEO is Ms Gugu Mazibuko. She agreed that there were some frozen and vacant positions in CBE, and this happened because there had been a promise by the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) that qualified candidates would be provided. As a result of these not being filled, the budget had been cut, but this financial year the positions would be unfrozen.

She noted that the CBE was not able to employ more researchers than had been budgeted for. In relation to the selection of learners, the CBE worked with the Department of Basic Education who selected the schools for CBE to support. Poor schools would be prioritised.

Mr Changfoot noted that  CBE has to look at job profiles on a regular basis because every quarter the CBE would do audits, and the consultants whom the CBE used would also work with CBE’s mentorship projects.

Dr Madlopha wanted to know what would be the CBE actions for mentors.

Ms Mdlalose said that CBE was committed to addressing the concerns around interns not being trained adequately and being skilled when they went into the workplace. Since most interns are students, CBE cannot employ them or help them to be employed within CBE until they had completed their qualifications.

The Deputy Minister wanted to emphasise that CBE was an entity and had to be given the same treatment as other entities.

Agrément South Africa 2016/17 Annual Performance Plan and budget
Ms Ntebo Ngcobo, Board Member, Agrément South Africa, noted an apology from the Chairperson of  Agrément South Africa (ASA), and said that she would give the presentation instead. Agrément South Africa had a mandate and intention to increase people of colour and women in the structure, to ensure that transformation is achieved. Agrément South Africa is also committed to improving the organisation’s work and making it more visible to the public.

Ms Ngcobo mentioned that the primary role of ASA is to develop products, give them standards and encourage innovation. She stated that if there is a desire to develop a product, then research is essential and with this in mind ASA is fully dedicated to research. Agrément South Africa is still in its developmental state, unlike SA Bureau of Standards (SABS). She outlined  Agrément South Africa’s role and its contribution to achieving national outcomes. It is a national entity fully accountable to the public and government, and when there is a change in the law, Agrément South Africa is obligated to change its standards. Agrément South Africa is committed to building professionals and certificate holders, so that granting certificates is a programme it  takes very seriously. Ms Ngcobo mentioned that the certificates handed out by Agrément South Africa are, and always will be, followed up to ensure that they are used in a way that is satisfactory to Agrément South Africa and its mandates.

Mr Thabelo Tshikombo, Financial Administrator, Agrément South Africa noted that Agrément South Africa’s grant is received in advance and that hiring by the organisation is dependent on its workload . This means that vacancies are not as frequent as other entities. He also stated that the finances of Agrément South Africa are monitored and audited on request.

Discussion
Ms Kohler- Barnard  asked what is done by Agrément South Africa that cannot be done by the SABS. She thought that it was duplicating work, and wondered what was the reason for its continued existence.

Ms Masehela said that the products that Agrément South Africa worked with are ‘’interesting’’ but they are not decentralised. She moreover mentioned that testing and innovation does happen due to the work of Agrément South Africa, but these products seemed not to end up by being distributed widely. Ms Masehela then pointed to the issue of vacancies and asked how vacancies are filled in the organisation. In terms of innovation and product development, Ms Masehela asked about legality and how Agrément South Africa ensures that it always operates within the bounds of the law.

Ms Kopane asked about the challenges Agrément South Africa faces and how Agrément South Africa ensures that it always has ‘technical works’.

The Deputy Minister of DPW highlighted slide 19 of the presentation, and stated that this might illustrate some of the differences between SABS and ASA. He noted that Agrément South Africa is a well performing entity but it is under resourced, which makes it difficult for it to carry out tasks.

Ms Ngcobo noted that marketing the ASA was very difficult because ASA simply lacked the budget to be able to go out and market itself. Its own financial l constraints made it difficult to take the entity to other provinces, as there was simply no room for this in the budget.

Mr Joe Adhiambo, Chief Executive Officer, Agrément South Africa, said that Agrément South Africa worked with caution and it did recruit skills when  needed. There were some vacancies, but these should be filled by the end of the 2016/2017 financial year. Where it needed skills that were not critical to its ongoing work, and which it thus did not have in-house, ASA would use  part time staff members. He concluded by stating that it was a challenge transferring skills from older qualified people to younger qualified people.

Ms Kopane asked what Agrément South Africa is doing to retain those who are already skilled. She wanted to know if had any way to fund-raise additionally, to cover costs such as marketing.

Mr Adhiambo noted that there were retention strategies in place. ASA was indeed already seeking opportunities for raising additional funding, provided that these were allowed for in law.

The meeting was adjourned.