Mid-Term Performance, Annual Report & Financial Statement: SA Management Development Institute briefing

Meeting report

PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
27 October 2004
MID-TERM PERFORMANCE, ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT: SOUTH AFRICAN MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE BRIEFING

Acting Chairperson: Mr B Mthembu (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Strategy into Action: Implementation of the SAMDI Strategic Plan 2004/2005
SAMDI PowerPoint presentation on their Annual Report
SAMDI Strategic Plan for 2004 / 2005 (offsite link)

SUMMARY
SAMDI briefed the Committee on its 2004 Annual Report and Strategy into Action Project. They pointed out that management development was complex because of the many levels and departments involved. A culture of high-quality service to the public had to be established. Appropriate kinds of skills had to be developed and not necessarily just academic qualifications. An incremental and organic growth process was favoured. The ideal was to establish a 'civil service college' that would prepare potential government employees before entering service, using a broad entrance examination as was done in India. A civil service career had to be elevated to a worthwhile option for high-quality candidates.

Members were concerned that government employees were more interested in obtaining academic qualifications, rather than day-to-day skills; that SAMDI's Director-General was also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and that there was not yet an honest and robust civil service.

MINUTES

SAMDI briefing
Mr Bobby Soobrayan (Director-General and CEO) took the Committee through the Strategy into Action and Annual Report documents. He stressed that the current response to the challenges of the second economy was different from what it was ten years back, and focused on education, health and social development. Skills and values were most important. Of the four pillars holding up the balanced scoreboard, viz. strategy, (business) processes, people and customer or citizen, the focus had to be predominantly on the last one, the people out there. The proposed strategy was actually a new business model to do things differently in order to achieve the promised turnaround. The battle for cost recovery through a revamped accounting system was still ongoing. For quality curriculum review international expertise was being utilised, as well as peer learning structures. SAMDI considered itself to be in partnership with other departments for service delivery and also acted as mediators with other training institutions.

Restructuring the SAMDI processes was highly complex. Their budget was too small for a big IT support system, and, as they were moving into a new building, it was considered wise to do incremental development of the IT system. The competition introduced by the Government's taking away the SAMDI monopoly for providing training services was supported. SAMDI still had a competitive edge because they were in government. Strategic partnerships were being established with higher education institutions. For regional and international collaboration the priority was NEPAD and development of the public sector. In the IBSA (India Brazil South Africa) initiative the stakes were high such as membership of the Security Council of the United Nations. In South Africa they were travelling economy class in the interests of preserving limited funds.

The year-on-year comparison of person training days (PTD's) indicated improvement over the previous year. The figure for September 2004 shown on the graph was inaccurate. They were intent on and proud of the successes in winning business. Their target was to increase the three-year turnover target to R100 million. They were proud of the unqualified audit achieved on both the Vote and Trading Entity seeing that one-and-a-half years previously the financial management was in complete chaos. Staff worked very hard to achieve this and special mention was made of Ms Marelize Hoogendoorn who stepped in when the Chief Financial Officer had to go on sick leave at crucial times.

Discussion
Ms Vytjie Mentor (ANC) wanted assurances that the real needs of South Africa informed the curriculum of SAMDI, such as simple things like record keeping and the ability to co-ordinate and integrate work, otherwise unnecessary duplication appeared. Mr Soobrayan replied that too many officials wanted to train for their own CV's rather than how to keep good records and rendering good service to the public. South African government employees rated high on academic qualifications. Ms Mentor warned that when engaged in international relationships or partnerships South African national interests had to be protected. Mr Soobrayan promised to take heed and added that precautions were taken.

Mr S Simmons (NNP) suggested that other government departments must pay when they had contracted with SAMDI for training, but then did not attend. Mr Soobrayan replied that perhaps 80% of the agreed fee should be forfeited.

Mr W M Skhosana (ANC) had reservations about the Director-General having the additional function of Chief Executive Officer. Mr Soobrayan replied that the timing for a separate CEO was not right seeing that the D-G had to be involved in every facet of building a strong organisation.

Ms Mentor was not happy with research and development in SAMDI. Mr Soobrayan agreed that R & D was a key area and informed the meeting that eventually a civil service college and a college to provide technical skills would be established.

The Chair asked whether SAMDI was comfortable with the current training model or whether they should not intervene pro-actively to improve the lack of capacity and resultant poor management at provincial and local government levels. Mr Soobrayan replied that the solution to such a system problem was a complex mixture which required bringing a lot of things together, like establishing co-operation with the Department of Education and the Public Service Commission. In India, aspirant state employees had to pass a competitive examination to get into the civil service and only star pupils were successful.

Ms Mentor aired her frustration with the poor service at delivery points in contrast to the pretty picture often painted at high-level discussions, and asked for honesty, robustness and clarity. Middle management should be targeted. She referred to the 'overspending - underspending epidemic' and asked for clarification on whether a net surplus was actually a case of under-expenditure.

Mr Soobrayan explained that in the case of SAMDI under-expenditure meant that a surplus was created for use in development during the next year.

Ms Mentor cited the case of her daughter who was brought under the impression by her school that South African learning institutions were inferior to those overseas, like Harvard University in the USA. She felt that the Public Service had to be made more attractive.

The Chair concluded that SAMDI's culture and value system required reshaping.

The meeting was adjourned.