Question NW536 to the Minister of Public Service and Administration
07 June 2016 - NW536
Lovemore, Ms AT to ask the Minister of Public Service and Administration
With reference to the ministerial speech delivered on the occasion of the debate on the Budget Vote of his department on 13 May 2015, and specifically to the creation of a pool of labour relations specialists and a team of legal experts from the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to deal with the backlog of disciplinary cases following Cabinet’s approval, what are the full details of (a) the pool of labour relations and legal experts formed after Cabinet’s decision, (b) the backlog of disciplinary cases with which they were intended to deal and (c) the progress made to date in addressing the specified backlog?
Reply:
On 09 September 2014 Cabinet approved the establishment of an internal pool of legal experts and labour relations specialists to deal with the backlog cases of precautionary suspensions in the public service. The DPSA has established a pool of panellists to deal with the backlog of precautionary suspension cases in the public service.
(a) The pool comprises 298 expert investigators, departmental representatives and presiding officers to ensure that the value chain is expedited in an optimal manner. Departments and provinces request assistance on their backlog cases from the DPSA.
(b) According the national and provincial statistical report of September 2014 to 31 March 2016 the total number of the backlog of precautionary suspension cases for national departments and provinces referred to DPSA is 687. The total breakdown consist of 291 cases for the provinces and 396 for the national departments.
(c) The progress made since the inception of the project is the resolution of 384 precautionary backlog cases. The total breakdown of the resolved cases consist of 57 for provinces and 327 for national departments. The percentage for the resolved cases is 56%. Members of the pool are allocated cases on a rotational basis so as to achieve an even spread of cases amongst panellists.