Performance Evaluation of Heads of Department: Public Service Commission briefing

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PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE

PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
07 March 2007
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF HEADS OF DEPARTMENT: PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION BRIEFING

Chairperson:
Mr P J Gomomo (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Public Service Commission presentation: An update on the evaluation of the performance of heads of department in the public service.
Public Service Commission: An update on the evaluation of the performance of heads of department in the public service. [Notes to accompany the presentation].

SUMMARY
The Public Service Commission updated the Committee on the annual evaluation of the performance of the heads of department in the public service in terms of guidelines issued by the Minister for Public Service and Administration. A major challenge and concern was the declining numbers of heads of department being evaluated at the end of each financial year, as was a disturbing trend of departments whose heads had never been evaluated since the 2000/01 evaluation cycle; for example, Health, Home Affairs, Public Works, Justice and Constitutional Development, and Arts and Culture. Furthermore there were heads of department who had violated a November 2002 Cabinet decision that required them to file their performance agreements with the Public Service Commission. A further challenge was incomplete verification statements and statements not aligned to performance agreements.  Performance management and evaluations were seemingly not accorded high priority, while department heads who were conscious of their under-performance possibly delayed filing their performance agreements to protect themselves.   Trends in performance ratings suggested a high level of satisfaction with departmental heads' performance, but the question arose as to the extent to which departmental heads' performance would compare to that of their departments. The Commission would this year pilot a framework for taking account of departments' performance.  The Public Service Commission recommended that executing authorities should demonstrate strong commitment to the process and ensure that performance agreements were entered into and filed with the Commission on time. 

Members expressed especial concern with the disparity between the high evaluations of some heads of departments and perceived performance of their departments. Members generally appreciated the efforts of the Public Service Commission itself, but felt that it should be more specific in its recommendations. Urgent action was needed with regard to non-submission of performance agreements and non-evaluation of heads of department.

MINUTES
The Chairperson welcomed the Members, the Public Service Commission (PSC) delegation, and observers; and invited all present to introduce themselves. He tendered apologies and expressed his desire that in future the agenda of the meeting together with the minutes of the previous meeting would be ready and circulated to Members beforehand, so that the minutes could be formally adopted while their contents were fresh in the minds of Members.

PSC Presentation
The venue's audio-visual facilities were not functioning so Mr Mqshwahle Diphofa, Deputy Director-General, referred to the paper version of the presentation to update the Committee on the evaluation of the performance of heads of department in the public service, whereby heads of department are evaluated in terms of guidelines issued annually by the PSC. These guidelines contain a legal framework issued by the Minister for Public Service and Administration.

The presentation focused on the implementation of this framework during the 2003/2004 financial year but also reflected on progress made since their first implementation in 2000/01. A major challenge remained the declining numbers of heads of department being evaluated at the end of each financial year, largely through executing authorities' failure to initiate the assessment of their heads of department as required by the framework.

There was also a disturbing trend of departments whose heads of department had never been evaluated since the 2000/01 evaluation cycle even though they qualified, for example, Health, Home Affairs, Public Works, Justice and Constitutional Development, and Arts and Culture.

A further key challenge was failure by heads of department to file their performance agreements with the PSC in violation of a Cabinet decision in November 2002 that all performance agreements of heads of departments must be filed with the Commission. Performance agreements were the basis for evaluating the performance of departmental heads and created a common point of reference for the departmental head and the executing authority in the entire performance management cycle.

A further challenge was the content of the documents submitted for the evaluation process, for example, incomplete verification statements, even without ratings or signatures of either the head of department, executing authority, or both, and verification statements that were not even aligned to the head of department's performance agreement, reflecting a possible failure of communication between executing authorities and heads of departments.  Feedback was not always provided by the executing authority, as supervisor, to the head of department concerned.

Panel members have largely provided insightful input during evaluation meetings, but the PSC has noted with concern some incidents where panel members have not played their role in critically reflecting on the head of department's performance in order to inform their advice to the executing authorities, and is concerned that such incidents might compromise the integrity of the evaluation process should such incidents develop into a trend.

Trends in performance ratings suggested a high level of satisfaction with heads of department performance, but an important consideration was the extent to which the performance of heads of department would compare to the performance of the departments for which they are responsible.

It was the Commission's view that the main reason for non-compliance with the framework for the evaluation of heads of department was that performance management and evaluation was not accorded high priority, together possibly with poor administrative support in the offices of executing authorities and heads of departments from their human resource departments. Such support was very necessary for new executing authorities and heads of departments who might not be familiar with the framework and its requirements, and together possibly with fundamental differences between executing authorities and heads of departments which were not mediated and might have resulted in late or non-signing of performance agreements. There was also the possibility that some heads of department who were not performing well simply delayed the process for fear that compliance would not be in their interest.

The Commission recommended that in order to improve the implementation of the framework it was important that executing authorities should play their role and initiate the process to evaluate their heads of departments. Without the strong commitment of executing authorities, there would continue to be a high number of heads of department who were not evaluated despite their qualifying for evaluation. Executing authorities could also ensure that performance agreements were entered into and filed with the Commission on time.

There was a need to standardize the management of career incidents of heads of department. Premiers who had not delegated that function to their Members of Executive Council should put in place a mechanism to avoid delays in evaluations. It would be even better if such a mechanism were to be prescribed as a regulatory instrument by the Minister for Public Service and Administration.

Moreover, it was important that the performance of departments themselves were taken into account when assessing the performance of their heads of department. The Commission has created a framework for this and will pilot it during 2007. Furthermore, there needs to be a round table with executing authorities to further discuss the above challenge. This round table could also explore practical measures that could improve the process.

Professor Stan Sangweni, Chairperson, explained that monitoring and evaluation was a core function of the Commission. The Commission facilitated the process of evaluation within the framework that it had developed. Decisions on the basis of such monitoring and evaluation were the responsibility of the Minister. He added that the Commission was informed by good international practice, for example, New Zealand.

Discussion

Mr M R Sikakane (ANC) asked that, if the Commission had observed with concern the declining momentum in the implementation of performance management for heads of department, then who was responsible and why; and what should be done to correct the decline.

Mr B Mthembu (ANC) was concerned about the lack of congruity between the evaluation of a head of department and the performance of the department of which the head of department concerned was head, and sought clarification as to why the instrument used did not necessarily indicate the performance of the department.

Mr M R Baloyi (ANC) asked whom the executing authority would normally appoint to serve on the panel that would assess the head of department and advise on her or his performance during a specific year. He asked whether members would be chosen from outside the public service as well as from within and whether there was an instrument with criteria to determine what categories of persons should be included in the pool of candidates from which panel members should be chosen. 

Ms M F Tlake (ANC) said that there appeared to be much subjectivity in the process and asked what measures could be taken to ensure that the process was objective. Secondly, Ms Tlake asked what was happening at the level of local government.

Dr U Roopnarain (IFP) said that from a reading of the documents it appeared that the various roles overlapped to an extent that was confusing. It was not always clear who was responsible for a particular function or stage of the process.

Mr Baloyi said that the Committee was not asking about the Public Service Commission's role of facilitator for the first time. Perhaps the Committee should continue to ask that question until Members were satisfied that the role of facilitator was a core function that did not prejudice the Commission's independence and impartiality. Furthermore, he asked for a definition of evaluation. If the Commission was involved at the level of the panels, perhaps that might compromise its objectivity, impartiality and independence. 

Mr K K Khumalo (ANC) asked when the performance reports were processed and assessed.

Mr K J Julies (DA) asked how the nation could achieve service delivery, as had been referred to in the President's 9 February 2007 State of the Nation Address, if the percentage of heads of department who had undergone the evaluation process had declined from 80% in 2001/02 to only 50% in 2003/04, with only 59% of all qualifying heads of department evaluated in the 2004/05 cycle by October 2006.

Ms Tlake observed “a chronic decline” in the number of heads of department evaluated and asked what the Commission proposed to do to arrest that decline.  An intervention greater than monitoring was required.

Mr Baloyi asked if, in the detailed report that was to follow, the departments mentioned with regard to the decline in the percentage of qualifying heads of department evaluated would be named, so that, if the Committee were to take action, the Members would know exactly which departments should be called to account. 

Mr Baloyi added that it would be beneficial to add some columns to  “Table 1: Number of heads of departments evaluated since the implementation”, in order to distinguish the total number of heads of departments from qualified heads of departments, and to give a breakdown of provinces in order to give the Committee a clearer picture of the situation. 

The Chairperson asked if those heads of department who did not meet the requirements for evaluation could be nonetheless evaluated.

Mr Julies was greatly concerned that so many heads of department who had not undergone evaluation were still in office.

Dr Roopnarain asked that defaulting departments should be called before the Committee to ascertain why they had not signed performance agreements.

Ms Tlake asked for an honest answer as to whether the Commission's presentation gave a fair and true picture of its activities, as she saw nothing tangible. 

Mr K J Minnie (DA) asked if the executing authority was the political authority. It was necessary to give due importance to the political authority. The Minister or the MEC concerned must take responsibility.

The Chairperson said that Committee Members also should be aware of their responsibilities as a committee.

Mr Julies asked what the oversight role of the Portfolio Committee and its Members was. He was   deeply concerned about the matter of defaulting departments. 

The Chairperson said that the Commission was providing all the committees with information as to what was happening, but, while they could provide information and advice, they could not act in an executive mode. It was for the politicians to act. Committee Members had to ask themselves what had they done with the information provided by the Commission.

Mr Baloyi asked that attention be paid to the Commission's concerns that the content of documents submitted for the evaluation process was not always of the desired quality and that the performance agreements submitted did not always meet the requirements, which raised concerns that there was a lack of understanding of the regulatory requirements.

Mr Sikakane asked that the problem of insufficient communication between executing authorities and heads of departments be given very serious attention.

Mr Khumalo said that the reasons advanced in the analysis of non-compliance, for example that performance evaluation was not always given high priority, were based on speculation. Clarity was needed.

Mr Baloyi asked if the Committee could assume that there were indeed extreme cases of non-compliance. If there were, what was the rate of prevalence? As a portfolio committee it was necessary to be provided with information about such cases.

With regard to the Commission's recommendations, such as that the executing authorities should play their role as provided in the evaluation framework, and performance agreements should be entered into and filed with the Commission on time, Mr Baloyi said that the Commission needed to be more specific.

The Chairperson asked that, in the absence of the Commission's right to challenge the executive authority, the Commission provide the Committee with the relevant information so that the Committee itself could act.

Ms Tlake supported the Chairperson's request. Failure of executing authorities to fulfil their role as provided in the evaluation framework and failure to enter into performance agreements and file them on time were very serious matters. The Committee needed clarity on these so that it could assess how it could assist.

Mr Baloyi supported the Commission's conclusion that it would continue to monitor the process of evaluating heads of department, and report on progress.

The Chairperson urged the Commission to provide the Committee promptly with information on all instances of failure or non-compliance and to use the Committee’s services to assist in expediting the Commission's work.  

Mr Diphofa said that the evaluation had to be initiated by the executing authority as their supervisor concerned. The next step was the evaluation panel appointed by the executing authority. Reasons for non-evaluation were explained in the presentation and included lack of agreement between the executing authority and the head of department as to what should be included in the performance agreement. Regarding the panels themselves, the Commission issued in August every year guidelines on the whole evaluation process so that in September the final annual appraisals could take place. At a national level a panel should include a Minister from the same Cabinet cluster. At provincial level a panel should include a MEC from the same cabinet cluster. A panel should also include a peer of the head of department concerned from the same cluster. A panel could include key clients or stakeholders. In some cases this could include the chairperson of the relevant portfolio committee or the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the relevant public entity. The guidelines issued by the Commission, which are sent physically to executing authorities and published on the Commission's web site, indicate quite clearly who is responsible for each stage of the evaluation process. The parties concerned were not making effective use of the information that the Commission had made available to them. A panel's role was to advise the executing authority, which took decisions based on that advice. While subjectivity could not be eliminated altogether, the evaluation procedures were designed to ensure objectivity.

The Chairperson said that it was important to answer the question as to why the evaluation procedures were not applied to local government.

Mr Diphofa replied that the Commission's mandate was confined to national and provincial government.

The Chairperson asked for a more detailed explanation.

Professor Sangweni explained that new legislation to extend the same process to local government was under consideration.

The Chairperson appreciated this.

Ms Odette Ramsingh, Director-General, responded that the Commission did not have the authority to enforce its recommendations.  It was up to the Portfolio Committee to call defaulting departments to account for their failure to comply. The Commission regarded performance management as of the utmost importance for quality in the public service and envisaged the proposed round tables as a means to encourage compliance and reverse the decline in the number of heads of departments being evaluated; otherwise instances of non-compliance, such as that of the Department of Home Affairs, would continue.

The Commission's organisational assessment tool that was to be piloted this year was also aimed at improving the process. To qualify for evaluation, a head of department had to be in post from the beginning of April to the end of March in the evaluation year. In that case the process was straightforward. An informal appraisal at the end of six months was followed by a formal appraisal at the end of twelve months after which the Minister of Public Service and Administration would decide if a cash bonus should be paid to the head of department concerned. If, however, the head of department concerned had completed only eleven months in office, the informal and formal appraisals should be done, but the head of department would not be entitled to a bonus until after 23 months. Consideration of a bonus should not stop the appraisal process. In view of the understandable sensitivity of executing authorities and heads of departments, the Committee could be assured that the Commission sought to achieve the highest levels of objectivity. 

The Chairperson addressed the researchers who were attending the meeting as observers. Their role was to help the Committee by taking careful note of all the issues raised and the responses to those issues. There was a need for the Commission to be more specific about the steps it was taking to improve performance management.

Ms Ramsingh said that the executing authorities' role was critical to good performance management. At the final stage, it was the responsibility of the Minister to take the necessary decisions.  The Portfolio Committee's responsibility in terms of oversight was to call the parties concerned to account for deficiencies. From the verification statements it was possible often to detect that the parties concerned had not had a discussion about performance. Performance evaluation was not about pushing papers; it was about discussion on what had been done and had not been done, and commitment of the parties concerned to correct omissions and deficiencies. While there were no instances of an absolute lack of communication there was often evidence of a lack of honest discussion between the concerned parties. The Commission could be clearer on general administrative aspects but that it tried to be diplomatic when informing executing authorities that they had failed to comply with requirements.

The Chairperson questioned the idea of diplomacy and urged the Commission to be more specific when informing executing authorities about failing heads of departments. He said that diplomacy must not hide instances of failing the citizens of South Africa. It was indeed necessary to mention names.

Ms Ramsingh replied that the Commission did engage with executing authorities, but some lacked the political will to act on the Commission's advice. The Commission could do more regarding performance agreements by informing the Committee regarding the progress of submissions at three-monthly intervals rather than waiting to the end of the financial year.

Professor Sangweni emphasised that the Commission was engaging executing authorities. However, performance management was not “a punitive process” but rather a process of assisting senior management to improve performance and achieve value for money expended.

Mr Diphofa said with regard to Mr Mthembu’s question concerning correlation of the performance of the head of department with that of the department concerned that some members of panels had also raised that question. The Commission saw itself in a critical role in advising on how to improve performance in the public service. Existing performance management was about individuals; the Commission was studying how to extend the concept of performance management to departments as entities themselves. This was at the pilot and exploratory stage: meanwhile performance of departments as such was not taken into account in performance appraisals of heads of departments.

Mr Sikakane said that in South Africa if one wanted fairness, honesty, integrity and credibility, it was necessary to involve the Public Service Commission, as, for example, with regard to the intervention committee in the case of the Department of Home Affairs where Ms Ramsingh had been called in to give direction to that committee. The Commission had made Mr Sikakane “very proud” of their service not just to public administration and to Parliament but to South Africa. He said that they were “too good for words”.

Mr Baloyi said that Professor Sangweni had indicated that the Commission was playing a facilitative role. Similarly, the Chairperson of the Committee was playing a facilitative role in conducting this meeting.  But when a decision was taken as a committee, the Chairperson was surely a party to the decision. It was in that context that Mr Baloyi raised those points. He noted that the Chairperson of the Public Service Commission had said that in the international context the Commission was among the best of its kind.  The basis of such a comparison had to be questioned. The one similarity between public service commissions in the world was that they were independent. But of course there were unique circumstances and the Committee should research this matter. The Constitution spoke of the evaluation of institutions. At that stage it was necessary further to debate the issue. The Committee agreed that the evaluations were not punitive but at the same time it was necessary to consider corrective steps. As Mr Sikakane had said to achieve confidence in anything concerning the public service, it was essential to involve the Public Service Commission; but the Committee needed to do research to take the matter further.

The Chairperson said that he had enjoyed interacting with the Public Service Commission and “provoking” them to discuss matters of concern for the benefit of our society. He thanked the Commission for its presentation.

The meeting was adjourned. 



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