Special Report of Public Protector: Minister’s Response

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Meeting report

PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE

PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
18 February 2005
SPECIAL REPORT OF PUBLIC PROTECTOR: MINISTER’S RESPONSE

Chairperson:
Mr P Gomomo (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Minister’s PowerPoint presentation on Public Protector Report 19: Investigation into delays in communication in the public service

SUMMARY
The Minister of Public Service and Administration, Ms G Fraser-Moleketi, appeared before the Committee to respond to the Public Protector’s Report on poor service delivery in the Public Service. She informed Members of measures being implemented to improve service delivery and turnaround times throughout the Public Service.

Members welcomed the Minister’s input but raised questions about the commitment of civil servants, their discipline and work ethic and their training levels. The Committee resolved to visit Public Service offices around the country to witness first-hand what measures were being implemented to improve service delivery.

MINUTES

Minister’s response
The Public Protector’s report recommended better utilisation of technology. The Minister said that departments were sufficiently equipped or in the process of being equipped. Challenges remained in training staff to use this equipment optimally. Greater use of email facilities would have to be carefully managed.
The recommendation that all departments develop and publish their service standards and response times was already being fulfilled to some extent, as departments were expected to publish service standards in their annual reports. National Treasury had recently launched the "Guideline for Legislative Oversight through Annual Reports", to which the Committee should pay particular attention. These reports should be used to interrogate heads of department on compliance with service standards.

The Minister said that performance agreements already contained defined standards of performance. Various programmes were in place to enhance the capacity of management as suggested in the report and these programmes also addressed the development of decision-makers at lower levels.
The report advised that each department define its core business and that channels of communication should be shortened. The Minister said that core business was defined in Strategic Plans and that communication channels should not become more complex. Compulsory induction programmes were in place to ensure a back-to-basics approach. She said that the recommendation for every department to have an area or office, which dealt with complaints only, was already being catered for by the Customer Management Systems, which formed part of the Batho Pele Strategy. This system would be developed further, so that the public had access to a line official in each department. Various departments already operated such a help line.

The performance assessment of public servants had to be measured against the responsiveness to public enquiries and more time had to be spent on service delivery, as per the report. In order to facilitate this, performance agreements needed to incorporate service delivery standards in accordance with that department’s service delivery improvement plans.

Senior staff and supervisors were to set the example in service delivery, which in turn would have a positive ripple effect on subordinates. This would be facilitated by the introduction of induction programmes and the application of the Batho Pele principles. The Batho Pele Revitalisation Programme and the distribution of the Batho Pele handbook were aspects of this effort. The report stipulated more realistic targets be set by national departments for responses by provincial departments. The Minister said a public monitoring system in the form of a website was on the cards and that oversight bodies had to interrogate annual reports against strategic plans. This was the responsibility of the Auditor-General as well as Parliament and Legislatures.

The report suggested that government launch a comprehensive communication campaign. This would inform the public of the different spheres of government and the jurisdiction and responsibility of each. The Minister said that the Government Gateway and the Isimbizo campaign went a long way towards fulfilling this need.

Multi-purpose community centres would also have a role to play in this regard. The suggestion for a one-stop facility, including a 24-hour call centre to assist the public with complaints and enquiries, was not really realistic. Only certain information had to be accessible 24 hours a day, such as that for emergency services, while other information was already available during office hours. Resource availability needed to be looked at in this regard. The report stated that Ministers, Members of Executive Councils, Directors-General of national government departments and provincial administrations had to determine whether the shortcomings in effective communication had been addressed in their respective departments. Oversight bodies and legislatures had to address this responsibility through the interrogation of annual reports. Similarly compliance with the Batho Pele principles relied upon testable accountability. The report demanded compliance with the Code of Conduct for Public Servants and the implementation of disciplinary measures for non-compliance. This Code was being implemented where human resources allowed. Very often managers simply did not act upon non-compliance and this was mainly due to lack of accountability. This required ongoing attention. The Public Service Commission could possibly be involved in terms of reporting on individual departments Annual Reports, in relation to Strategic Plans. Verification of information in annual reports might be included in the brief of the Auditor-General.

The Minister reiterated the responsibilities of the Portfolio Committees of the National Assembly and the Provincial Legislatures in calling political and administrative heads of department to account in improving standards of service delivery. The Speaker of the National Assembly and the Provincial Legislatures was to refer all these reports to the relevant Portfolio Committees. The Minister said this was a given.

Discussion
Mr Gomomo said that Advocate Fourie had been frustrated by the lack of response from the Departments. It had become apparent that the application of the principles of Batho Pele was non-existent.

Ms L Maloney (ANC) noted that no Member of the opposition was present and that they were obviously not interested in the Public Service. She asked what was going to happen to rollovers in the various departments and what was the government’s approach to making use of consultants.

Mr Skhosana (ANC) said that it seemed the employees simply did not know their function. Was the work too difficult or was it a question of lack of motivation? These were issues of governance and citizenry, which by rights should have been covered during school years. He suggested that school curricula should be addressing such issues. Similarly the question of staff being unable to fully utilise technology at their fingertips might be due to the fact that adults did not learn such new skills as easily as the young.

Minister Fraser-Moleketi said she also noted the absence of any Member of the opposition and that contributing towards the smooth running of the Public Services and the efficient use of government funds was central to the issue of democracy.

She said that a report had been submitted a few years ago, with regard to the use of consultants in government and the amount spent on this. It had to be emphasised that the government was not averse to using consultants, but that it had reservations about using them in instances where there was no transfer of skills or where duplication of work was the result. They had to play an enhancing role, rather that serve as contract workers whose contracts were constantly renewed. The over-dependence on IT contract workers had partly created the need for a body like the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), which was supposed to provide government with a regulated source of skills in this field. Parliament in its oversight role could investigate whether this resource was properly used and managed.

The Minister cautioned everyone not to over-generalise the low levels of service delivery based on anecdotal information, as areas of excellence did exist within the Public Service. The mere fact that the entire Public Service received their salaries on time every month was an example of this. She acknowledged that often it was the basics, which were no longer in place, like filing, record keeping and HR management and which caused poor performance. These basics needed to be in place in order to move forward and improve matters. The Public Service needed more personnel in certain areas such as health. Public hospital wards contained 50 patients, who were cared for by only four nurses. The Hospital Revitalisation Plan was looking at increasing personnel to patient quotas.

She said that while the Safety and Security and Home Affairs departments had equipment, this was not sufficient and at the same time some of the equipment was not being optimally utilised. It would require a change in mindset to make better use of the available technology, but it would obviate unnecessary duplication and would expedite administration. While these matters were to be taken seriously it was important to not only lament the failures of the Public Service, but to praise its successes. The Home Affairs department in the Eastern Cape had dramatically improved its service levels. It was important to keep staff motivated and to infuse a sense of positivism in the work environment. It required the almost revolutionary idea that "I am here to serve the public". Elected representatives needed to form the bridge between the public and the Public Service, in order to ensure that service delivery improved to acceptable levels and that expectations held by the public were in line with deliverables. They also had to play an oversight role in calling public servants to account.

Mr Gomomo commented on a general lack of commitment to work that seemed to be pervasive throughout the Public Service.

Mr N Gcwabaza (ANC) commended the Minister for the work being done to improve service levels and asked how much training was given to the lower levels of administration. He suggested that some form of restructuring might be needed to improve matters as some areas of administration seemed to contain an inordinate amount of subsections, which increased the risk of files and letters being mislaid. He knew that this might even entail retrenchment, which was not necessarily something he would ordinarily favour, but which might be necessary to streamline things. He said that filing was critical in all areas and this function needed revisiting, as it carried serious consequences. He said there seemed to be a pervasive attitude among public servants that after they had succeeded in gaining employment, the public had to beg them to do the work they were expected to do.

Ms W Neuwhoudt-Druchen (ANC) said the document had been a real eye-opener for her. Disabled persons were often not able to gain employment in the Public Service, because people had the misconception that such people would not be up to the task and yet it was patently clear that many able-bodied servants were equally incapable of doing the work expected of them. She knew of a disabled friend who had previously worked in the private sector who was now in the public service and experienced the performance of staff working for him as poor and inadequate. Ms Newhoudt-Drunchen asked what percentage of public servants was disabled and what was being done to improve these imbalances.

Ms P Mashangoane (ANC) thanked the Minister for the information presented. She asked whether there were time frames for the training of junior managers. She asked what the situation was regarding the use of consultants in Integrated Development Plans and if Community Development Workers were going to be prepared to take over their role and assist in these Plans.

Minister Fraser-Moleketi agreed that a winning nation needed to be strong on commitment, ethics and service in their approach to work. Public servants needed to understand that every job was important and that spending several years in one position did not necessarily mean a vote of no confidence from your superiors. People should not always be so eager to move up the ladder. It was therefore important that those at the coalface of delivery receive training and not only those in leadership positions. Clerks should be given the bigger picture in making them understand the significance of their work and the implications of that work further down the line. Clerks were being given further training in subjects like finance and management, but often it was difficult to take these clerks out of their positions for even a short period of time, because of the backlogs that would be created. Managers were often loath to undertake training for this reason. The Minister said that sometimes such short-term effects had to be suffered, in order to enjoy long- term gains. Sometimes bold intervention was called for to improve service delivery and she stated that supervisors should have the courage to take that step to rectify matters.

She cited as example the recent re-registration of grant beneficiaries, in order to guarantee integrity of data. This was a necessary if painful way of solving the problem at the time. Creative solutions were needed to alleviate the often highly pressurised environments in which public servants worked. She said flatter structures, in order to streamline work, were important, but that one had to be careful in doing so. She agreed that certain administrative loops could be narrowed. A campaign called "red tape smart tape" had been initiated by the Department in an effort to make administration faster and more efficient. She said that some public servants had offered very simple solutions to cutting down on so-called "red tape". She invited Members to participate and come forward with any recommendations, however small, that could make a positive difference.

The Minister agreed that filing was a critical component of administration, but said that she suspected in some instances files were not so much mislaid as deliberately misplaced and cited one case where she was pursuing a matter involving non-payment of maintenance and the relevant file mysteriously going missing. She said that unfortunately the ills of society sometimes permeated into government departments, but that citizens should not be made to suffer as a result of negligence. A culture of no tolerance should be displayed towards culprits, especially since it was often the most vulnerable in society that suffered the effects of such errors.

She remarked that there seemed to be a widely held view that many public servants were corrupt, but that this was often not based on first or even second-hand experience. Furthermore, the public had a moral obligation to act ethically and not to place public servants in situations where they were tempted to accept bribes. She said there were over one million public servants and that they often were not held accountable for their work and responsibilities and often were not prepared to go that extra mile. The public perception that public servants should be pitied, because they often did not earn very well, did not help matters. The Minister agree that the Public Service had performed dismally in fulfilling disability targets and she agreed that it did not make sense to exclude people with disabilities from these positions when able-bodied people often did not perform up to standard and disabled persons did.

She said that training was an ongoing process throughout the Public Service and therefore there were no time frames applicable. She suggested that the Committee ask someone in the Public Service and Education and Training Authority to report on an ongoing basis on training.

The role consultants played in Integrated Development Plans (IDP) were a perennial problem and she said Community Development Workers (CDW) were being trained to take over more of this responsibility where communities were in need. The first group of 30 trainers and co-ordinators of Community Development Workers were being sent to India at the end of February to attend a rural training centre, where they would gain experience of some very innovative approaches used in rural communities in India. These approaches could be adapted to the South African situation. She ended by agreeing with the chairperson in encouraging Members not be cautious, but to lead from the front.

Mr Gomomo thanked the Minister for her feedback. He said there was an approximate amount of R250 000 available in the Committee’s budget, which would be returned to state coffers if not utilised by the middle of March. He suggested this be used to pay visits to Public Service offices throughout the country to assess the current levels of service delivery and asked for support from the Minister. The Members would be divided into groups to visit certain offices. Heads of Department should be called to give an account of the measures taken in their own departments, in response to the report and a statement should be made to the media stating what actions Parliament had taken to improve service delivery in the Department of Public Service and Administration.

Minister Fraser-Moleketi said that possibly the Members would not be able to investigate a wide enough sample in the time available to them and that they should utilise the annual reports in conjunction with a spot check of certain offices together with their provincial legislature counterparts in the various provinces. She said the Annual Reports were used by the Auditor-General and therefore had to contain accurate information.

The meeting was adjourned.

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