Public Service and Administration, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation; Statistics SA BRRR; Public Service Commissioner: shortlisting of candidates

Meeting report

Nomination of Interim Acting Chairperson and introduction of co-opted Members
The Acting Committee Secretary proposed the nomination of an Interim Acting Chairperson, based on the current National Assembly Rules.

Mr M Booi (ANC) requested the Acting Committee Secretary to revisit the Rules. He pointed out that the existing Acting Chairperson had not been able to participate in the meeting today, and had sent apologies to the Committee, and wondered if the Rules spoke to what must be done in such circumstances.

Mr A van der Westhuizen (DA) agreed with the proposal of the Acting Committee secretary to nominate and elect an Acting Chairperson on the basis of the National Assembly Rules.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) observed that the Rules provided for the Acting Chairperson to ask for the nomination of another Acting Chairperson if the former could not be present at a Committee meeting.

Mr M Booi (ANC) still wanted clarity on the issue.

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) appealed to the Committee to allow the Acting Committee Secretary to seek the advice of other Committee Secretaries on this issue.

The Acting Secretary noted the concerns of the Committee Members and promised to take these concern to management and report back at the next meeting.

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) appealed to Members to appoint an Interim Acting Chairperson for this meeting so that the meeting could continue.

Members nominated and appointed Ms R Lesoma as Interim Acting Chairperson for this meeting.

Ms Lesoma outlined the agenda for the meeting. She noted the apologies of Members and added that, in order to form a quorum for the adoption of reports, other Members had been co-opted to ensure that the Committee would have a quorum. The Members who were co-opted for this meeting were Mr A van der Westhuizen (DA), Ms N Mothapo (ANC) and Ms H Nyambi (ANC).

Budgetary Review and Recommendation Reports 2016
Ms Lesoma confirmed that Members had received the amendments submitted by the researchers on the previous evening, and asked the Committee Researchers to recap the amendments to ensure that all issues raised in the meeting of 19 October were covered.

Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) for Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), Public Service Commission (PSC), National School Government (NSG), Centre for Public Service and Innovation (CSPI) – dated 19 October 2016
The Committee Research team noted that some of the recommendations had been moved into the “Observations and Key Findings” section of the Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (the Report or the BRRR), based on the instructions of the Committee on the previous day.

They firstly highlighted the clauses that had been moved as clauses 10.2, 10.4, 10.5, 10.10, 10.12, 10.13 and 10.17 (see document attached). They were moved into the “Observations and Key Findings” section so that the Committee would not lose sight of these recommendations, which were operational in nature.

That had then left six recommendations, an easier number.

The Interim Acting Chairperson pointed out that a new sentence had been added to the conclusions.

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen suggested some grammatical and syntax changes, changing channel to “channels “in clause 10.4; hotels to “hostels” in clause 10.17; and pointing out that the phrase “physically impaired” should read “people with disabilities”. On page 12, there should be a reference to “Western Cape”.

Mr S Motau (ANC) stated that on page 23 ‘funds for vacancies’ should read ‘funds for posts’.

Subject to these amendments, Members adopted the BRRR.

BRRR for Statistics South Africa (StatsSA).
The Committee Researchers noted that only one recommendation was moved to the “Observations and Key Findings” section. They highlighted clause 9.8.

Mr S Motau (ANC) stated that on page 14, clause 10.1, line 1 the correct phrase to use would be “Statistics South Africa should fast track amending”. In clause 10.1, line 2, the phrase should read “Statistical reform in order to reform”

The Members adopted the BRRR, with amendments as agreed.

BRRR for Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) and the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)
The Committee Researchers tabled the revised BRRR dated 19 October. The clauses that had been moved from the “Recommendations” to the “Observations and Key Findings” section were 10.2, 10.4, 10.12 and 10.13. The Committee was also asked to note that there were six recommendations. However, no changes to legislation were recommended as the NYDA had administrative issues only.

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen cited some spelling and grammatical changes.

Members adopted the Report, with the necessary amendments.

The Interim Acting Chairperson thanked the Committee Researchers for their close attention to the Committee's requests on the previous day.

Adoption of Committee Minutes
Minutes of 14 September
Mr Booi observed that Parliament had rules covering the nomination and election of an Acting Chairperson and stated that the Committee should work with these Rules.

The Interim Acting Chairperson requested that the  pages should be numbered. She requested that the title Acting Chairperson be capitalised. She asked that bullet point 2, on the last page, which was currently included under “Resolutions” was a point for information and not resolutions.

Mr Motau stated that his name had been spelled wrongly. He furthermore highlighted some grammatical and technical corrections.

The Interim Acting Chairperson added that the “oversight issues” in bullet point 4 should be put under the information section, not under “Resolutions”. The department should send reports on Thursday, not Friday. The  DPME should ensure website addresses are used, not email addresses.

Subject to these amendments, Members adopted the minutes

Minutes of 12 October
Ms N Mothapo (ANC) requested that her initials be corrected.

Members adopted the minutes, subject to this correction.

Minutes of 13 October
Mr F Marais (DA) requested that Secretariat corrected the spelling of his name.

Members adopted the minutes as corrected.

Minutes of 14 October
The Interim Acting Chairperson reminded the Committee that the minutes now being considered were those relating to the short-listing of the candidates for a vacant position of Public Service Commissioner. A sub-Committee had been formed to deliberate on the criteria that would be used to short-list the candidates for the position, and the Committee was thus charged with approving those criteria, before the minutes could be adopted.

Mr F Marais (DA) expressed appreciation to Members who had been co-opted to form a quorum. He suggested that since this was effectively a sub-Committee, those Members who were listed as tendering their apologies should not be named as tendering apologies. They had been available for the main meeting but had not been part of the sub-Committee.

Mr Motau and Mr Marais had to leave at this point to attend another meeting.

Mr A van der Westhuizen (DA) asked that the heading  be amended to make it clear that this was a sub-Committee meeting.

The Interim Acting Chairperson again noted that the title Acting Chairperson should be capitalised.

She noted that one of the resolutions of the sub-Committee was that the position of Public Service Commissioner should be occupied by an officer at a senior management level. Neither the minutes nor the documents relating to the shortlist had been handed out. The Interim Acting Chairperson noted that colour coding had been used to classify the applicants into categories. The Committee had to set the criteria for selection of candidates for interview.

Mr van der Westhuizen commended the Researcher who had worked on the classification. He thought that if there were three vacancies, the short-list should be trimmed down to a manageable number.

Mr Booi emphasised that the Committee must follow legal process but wondered if the resolution that the preferred candidate must be at senior management level was legally sound.

Ms N Mothapo (ANC) observed that the Rule stipulated that the candidate must be “fit and proper” but this is not fully described. She further stated that the Public Service Act was not helpful as it did not set out exactly what was required, so that Members could draw comparisons. She thought that the criteria should have been set out in the minutes.

The Interim Acting Chairperson stated that she had actually taken the sub-Committee through a selection of known cases that could give an overview and could be applied to define the term ‘‘fit and proper’ as mentioned. The criteria were actually listed, although this had not been captured in the minutes. The Acting Chairperson of the sub-Committee should have been present, but an oversight by the Secretariat resulted in that person not being invited.

Mr Booi felt that the minutes needed to capture all deciding factors when setting the criteria so that the Committee could be seen to be acting legally.

The Interim Acting Chairperson stated that the sub-Committee had set the criteria based on the mandate, known cases, and the Public Service Act which did interpret the term ‘‘fit and proper’.

Mr Booi pointed out that the minutes did not reflect that all the members of the Committee were present when the criteria for the short list were set. The minutes were not completely coherent, and the Committee was left wondering why the shortlisting appeared to have been done by one person.

The Interim Acting Chairperson stated that the Researcher was not instructed to shortlist on the basis of “fit and proper” clause.

Mr van der Westhuizen stated that although the Committee was saddled with the responsibility of short listing for the position of Public Service Commissioner, the Committee still needed the assistance of support staff to carry out their functions. The categorisation carried out by the support staff had made the work of the Committee easier.

The Interim Acting Chairperson noted the correction suggested to the minutes. She asked that the Committee Secretariat specifically include the criteria, based upon the mandate: namely that the candidate:
- must have been previously employed at a senior management level
- the requirements of the Public Service Act
- a summary of cases that gave an overview of and could be applied to define the term “fit and proper”

She added that the meeting of 14 October had discussed the legal interpretation of ‘fit and proper’. She was appreciative of Mr Booi's remarks that sensitized the Committee to the fact that the minutes did not correctly capture all points in the meeting.

The Committee Researcher reported that the sub-Committee had decided and instructed that he should screen the candidates based on the criteria set by the legal team. The “shortlist” thus created with the categories was merely a recommendation and not a resolution.

The Interim Acting Chairperson said that the word “screening” in the minutes was not quite correct; that should be amended to “categorisation” in the minutes.

Mr Booi still did not feel that the minutes of 14 October were fully reflective of the discussions at that meeting and did not capture the legal interpretation of “fit and proper”. He suggested that they be withdrawn, and re-written so that they were fully coherent. He further asked the Committee to delay the shortlisting of applicants until the minutes had been amended.

The Interim Acting Chairperson observed that the sole purpose of the meeting of 14 October 2016 was to get legal backing for the short listing of applicants, for the position of Public Service Commissioner. There was no need for Mr Booi to feel apologetic about asking that the minutes be re-drawn.

Mr Booi (ANC) asked for the names of the members of the sub-Committee.

Mr van der Westhuizen expressed his concern that the meetings would be extending to the first week of December and wondered if the Committee Researcher could be given more work.

The Interim Acting Chairperson stated that because the meeting was deferred the Researcher should not be given more work on the categorisation. Names of members of the sub-Committee would be given to the Acting Secretary.

She summarised the decision of the Committee as follows:
- Members were not happy with the minutes of the meeting of 14 October 2016. They would reconvene on the following Tuesday to adopt a revised draft. In the meantime, the administration would capture the essence of today's meeting.

Members agreed with that summary.

The meeting was adjourned.