Election of Chairperson; DPSA, PSC, NSG & CPSI Annual Performance Plan 2024/25; with Minister

Meeting report

Election of Chairperson

The Committee began by electing Mr J de Villers (DA) as the new Chairperson. Thereafter, the agenda for the meeting was to receive presentations on the annual performance plans (APPs) for 2024/25 from the Department of Public Service and Administration, and three of its entities.

The first entity to present its annual performance plan for 2024/25 was the Public Service Commission (PSC).

Public Service Commission Annual Performance Plan 2024/25

Ms Lulu Sizani, PSC Commissioner, began the presentation by speaking on the process of securing the independence of the PSC, which included establishing an independent secretariat and reinforcing its mandate over local government. The Commission had therefore embarked on drafting the Public Service Commission Bill. The Bill had been with Parliament during the Sixth Administration, and a call had been made for public comment. The PSC had been informed that this Bill was a priority for the Seventh Administration, and asked the Committee to support them. 

Through its Programme Three (Monitoring and Evaluation), it was ensuring that the implementation gets done and indicating how that was to be achieved. There was a critical stakeholder meeting involving civil society, government, and other important role players, which resulted in the formulation of a road map showing the immediate deliverables and what still needed to be concluded to implement the framework.

Strategic outcomes

Ms Sizani listed the various PSC strategic outcomes to implement priority one:

• Outcome 1: An improved service delivery culture;
• Outcome 2: Sound leadership practices in the public service;
• Outcome 3: A well-coordinated and functioning monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system (data warehouse for the PSC);
• Outcome 4: A strong and well-functioning PSC.

For the 2024/25 financial year, the entity had an allocated budget of R288.5 million. In terms of footprint, there were nine provincial offices and one national office, each of which had a commissioner. The PSC had managed to contain a vacancy rate of below 10%, and had achieved a clean audit. There had been 80% finalisation of complaints, with varying times to reach conclusions, depending on the nature of the complaint -- approximately six months to handle simple complaints, but up to 12 months for more complex ones. The National Anti-Corruption Hotline referred 90% of calls within seven days. Another important function was conducting service delivery inspection reports, and to date, nine of these had been carried out.

Performance target indicators

Five programmes formed part of the PSC performance target indicators.

• Programme 1:  Administration. The programme provides overall management of the PSC and centralised support services.
• Programme 2: Leadership and Management Practices. The programme promotes sound public service leadership, human resource management, labour relations and labour practices.
• Programme 3: Monitoring and Evaluation. The purpose of this programme was to improve the functionality of the public service through institutional and service delivery evaluations.
• Programme 4: Integrity and Anti-Corruption. This programme was responsible for undertaking public administration investigations, promoting a high standard of professional ethical conduct amongst public servants, and contributing to preventing and combating corruption.
• Programme 5: Provincial Coordination. The programme ensured effective coordination of operations for the execution of the PSC mandate at the provincial level. This was a new programme that had been introduced after having carefully noticed a rise in the need from the provinces.

Budget and expenditure overview

• The baseline allocation for the PSC for the 2024/25 financial year was R288.5 million.Of this budget, R217.3 million (75%) was allocated to compensation of employees (CoE), based on the fact that the PSC was primarily a knowledge-based institution and did not outsource its functions.
• The goods and services budget was R68.9 million (24%). Out of this budget, R57.6 million  (83%) was for mandatory costs, whilst R11.3 million (17%) was for the implementation of the mandate of the PSC over the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) period.
• The budget for operational costs provided for national, parliamentary and nine provincial offices -- a total of 11 offices. The PSC had centralised its support function and as a result, the budget for administration was high, as it included the budget for centralised support services. These were made up of accommodation costs, State Information Technology Agency (SITA) services, training, internal audit, operational lease payments, Auditor-General’s (AG's) fees, etc.

Overall, the organisational performances and key priorities included 28 of a total of 30 APP targets that had been met in the previous financial year. About 99.5% of the budget had been spent, and the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) was currently auditing the financials.

The entity’s key priorities included passing the new PSC Bill and filling Commission vacancies.

See attached for the full presentation.

Minister's overview

Before the second entity presented, the Chairperson opened the floor for the Minister, Inkosi Mzamo Buthelezi, to make his comments.

The Minister highlighted the Department’s commitment to ensuring transparency with respect to the standards of public service and delivery, with an emphasis on ethics and human resources. The Department was committed to working together with the Portfolio Committee to strengthen the public service functions and improve service for the country's citizens.

The Chairperson welcomed the remarks, and said that even though the Committee’s role was that of oversight, there was room for collaboration with the Department to ensure a culture of professional service delivery for South Africans.

National School of Government Annual Performance Plan 2024/25

Prof Busani Ngcaweni, Principal, National School of Government (NSG), began the presentation. by inviting the Committee Members to register with the NSG. The first course was online, and would be free for the Members.

Vision and mission

The NSG's vision was to build an ethical and capable public sector in service of the people. Its mission was to empower public servants to be responsive to citizen's needs and government priorities through education, training and development Interventions.

It receives its accreditation from organisations such as the Services Sector Education and Training Authority (SSETA),  the Local Government SETA, the SA Board for People Practices, and the Education, Training and Development Practices (ETPD) SETA, which also assists with quality assurance.

The national framework for the implementation of professionalisation in the public sector includes the following phases:

• Recruitment and selection;
• Induction and onboarding;
• Planning and performance management;
• Continuing learning and professional development;
• Career progression, succession planning and management of career incidence of heads of departments (HODs).

Prof Ngcaweni said they had had to make a large shift in the school's delivery modes after the Covid-19 pandemic, as prior to that, 95% of the courses were conducted physically. Most programmes had now shifted online, while some had a hybrid setup to accommodate front-line workers who often had limited access to data.

NSG programmes

The NSG had mandatory programmes (Treasury-funded), compulsory and demand-driven short-learning programmes (Department-funded), open distance eLearning (no cost and paid for), and webinars and master classes (no cost).

The flagship programmes included:

• Inclusion and transformation;
• Induction and on-boarding;
• Effective management and leadership;
• Culture and change management;
• Managing procurement and public finances;
• Policy and regulatory improvement.

See attached for full presentation

Centre for Public Service Innovation Annual Performance Plan 2024/25

Ms Lydia Sebokedi, Acting Executive Director, Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI), said the mandate of the CPSI was derived from the Public Service Act, which located the responsibility for public service innovation in the Minister. This mandate was further expanded upon in Government Notice 700 of 2 September 2011. Its key vision was a solution-focused public sector through innovation, and the mission was to entrench an innovation culture and practice in the public sector.

There were only two programmes which the CPSI implements, since it was a small entity:

Programme 1: Administration. The purpose of the programme was to provide strategic leadership, management and support services to the Centre.

Programme 2: Public Sector Innovation. This programme aimed to drive service delivery innovation in the public sector, in line with government priorities.

The current vacancy rate was standing at 13.88%. This was because there had been additional capacity created by sacrificing the budget from goods and services, with the approval of National Treasury.

Ms Sebokedi elaborated on the research and development segment since commencement of the financial year on 1 April. Currently, there was an artificial intelligence (AI) integrated programme to deal with cyber security challenges. Another project was around intellectual property (IP) and looking at how to manage IP in government. The research unit was doing a comparative analysis with other countries, the key findings of which were that in other countries, the IP was opened up to partners, other than solely to government.

In the area of development, the CSPI was working with the Gauteng Emergency Medical Service (EMS) to develop an Uber-like service. The Centre had also hosted the Northwest Education Department the previous week to learn about the Eastern Cape’s E-digit programme, and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed to have the code shared with other provinces among the system developers.

The entity was working on a number of innovations. An annual conference was held by inviting public service innovators, and international speakers were also invited to share what the global trends in the public sector innovation space were.

Another process with regard to innovation involved the CSPI team visiting different innovation zones in the provinces. There was an agricultural smart box that had won an award recently.

Regarding the quarterly targets added to the presentation, Ms Sebokedi said that it was complicated to have definitive deadlines given the nature of innovation, which was unpredictable.

See attached for full presentation

Department of Public Service and Administration Annual Performance Plan 2024/25

The final presentation was from the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), and was led by the Director-General (DG), Ms Yoliswa Makhasi.

She said some of the key achievements for the 2023/24 financial year included legislative amendments, with the Minister submitting two amendment Bills to Parliament in 2023. The Public Service Amendment Bill, 2023 seeks to amend the Public Service Act, 1994, and aims to:

• Devolve administrative powers from executive authorities to heads of departments;

• Enhance the role of the Director-General in the Presidency, to support the President;

• Establish a mechanism to recover overpayments of remuneration and benefits;

• Clarify the role of the Public Service Commission in handling grievances;

• Define the role of the President and the Premier in appointing and managing the career incidents of heads of departments;

• Prohibit heads of departments and employees from reporting directly to a head of department, holding an office of authority in a political party, and addressing related matters.

See attached for full presentation

Discussion

The Chairperson noted the time constraints. He said the Committee would still have further engagements noting that most Members are completely new to their roles and should have lots of questions. He asked if there were clarity-seeking questions and written responses could be provided.

Ms L Potgieter (DA) asked about the websites where information and resources could be found for the departments.

A Member welcomed the briefings. On the issue of finances for all departments, she asked about budgetary shortfalls and how this affects the organograms. She emphasised there must be a better plan to assist government with organograms and Compensation of Employees which required balancing.

She saw that there was a need for shared services between the departments and entities. It is important that Members were confident in the work presented to them and improvement on shared services was needed and also the timeframe for digitisation and professionalism of the public service which had been spoken about for a long time.

A Member noted that Members cannot support legislation if they do not have copies so Members must be taken through the bills referred to. She asked about why the Commissioner was not appointed.

The Chairperson said all Members would be added to a Whatsapp group. He thanked the presenters and noted there would be ample opportunity for further engagements.

The meeting was adjourned.