ATC120508: Report Strategic Plan & Budget of the department in the Presidency for performance monitoring & evaluation, dated 08 May 2012

Standing Committee on Auditor General

REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS ON THE STRATEGIC PLAN AND BUDGET OF THE DEPARTMENT IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND EVALUATION, DATED 8 MAY 2012

REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS ON THE STRATEGIC PLAN AND BUDGET OF THE DEPARTMENT IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND EVALUATION, DATED 8 MAY 2012

 

Having considered the strategic plan and the Budget Vote 6: Department in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, the Standing Committee on Appropriations reports as follows:

 

1. Introduction

 

The mandate of the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, herein after referred to as the Department was derived from Section 85 (2) (c) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa which states that the President exercises executive authority, together with the other members of the Cabinet, by coordinating the functions of State departments and administrations.

 

The Department was promulgated in January 2010 in line with Section 85(2) (c) of the Constitution. As from 01 April 2011, the Department was assigned Vote 6 after being removed from Vote 1 (The Presidency).

 

In terms of section 10 (1) (c) of the Money Bills Amendment Procedures and Related Matters Act, No 9 of 2009, the relevant members of Cabinet must table updated strategic plans for each Department, public entity or institution, which must be referred to the relevant committee for consideration and report. The Strategic Plan of the Department was referred to the Standing Committee on Appropriations, hereinafter referred to as the Committee, on 7 March 2012 for consideration and reporting.

 

2. Mandate of the Department

 

The Department has the following mandates:

 

· To facilitate the development of plans or delivery agreements for the cross cutting priorities, or outcomes of government and monitor and evaluate the implementation of these plans;

· To assist the President to put in place performance agreements for each Minister;

· To provide support to the President and Deputy President on Cabinet memorandum;

· To monitor the performance of individual national and provincial government departments and municipalities;

· To monitor frontline service delivery;

· To carry out evaluations;

· To promote good monitoring and evaluation practices in government; and

· To produce government-wide M&E frameworks.

Moreover, there is an additional mandate of managing the Presidential Hotline and evaluation. The purpose of the transfer of the function was to give effect to the focus of government on monitoring and evaluation by promoting interface between government and the citizens. Therefore, a revised Strategic Plan has been tabled in 2012 which included the additional mandate of managing the Presidential Hotline and evaluation, inputs from the Departments Internal Auditors and the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA), the refinement of outputs, indicators as well as the focus on evaluation.

 

3. Overview of Budget Vote 6 for the 2012/13 Financial Year

 

Budget Vote 6 is divided into four funded programmes that seek to achieve its mandate, namely: Administration, Outcomes Monitoring and Evaluation, Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Coordination and Support, and Public Sector Oversight. The budget allocation for the Department for the 2012/13 financial year and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework is depicted in Table 1 below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1: Budget Allocations per programme – 2012/13 financial year and MTEF

Programme	Appropriation 2012/13 ‘R 000’	Current Payments	Transfers and Subsidies	Payments for Capital Assets	Appropriation for 2013/14	Appropriation for 2014/15
Administration	59.8	46.3	-	13.5	66.7	68.7
Outcomes Monitoring and Evaluation	37.5	37.5	-	-	44.9	49.0
M&E Systems Coordination and Support	19.0	18.9	-	-	20.6	21.8
Public Sector Oversight	57.8	57.8	-	-	61.3	65.0
Total	174.2	160.7	-	13.5	193.4	204.4

 

4. Overall Budgeting and Programme Allocations

 

The budget of the Department has increased from R106 million in 2011/12 to R174.2 million in 2012/13 financial year. This was mainly driven by the projected increase of spending on consultants and the added mandate of managing the Presidential Hotline and evaluation. This therefore, means that the funding had to increase to take into account these additional mandates. The Department made use of consultants mainly to conduct evaluations of government performance. This was normally done to ensure that there was an independent opinion in the evaluation process of government departments. This was also done to take advantage of the capacity and expertise of evaluation in the private sector and to ensure that there was proper, efficient, effective and credible evaluation processes. According to the Department, this was also part of the cost effective measure and this was identified as one of the international best practices.

The allocated budget is dominated by current payments without transfers and subsidies. The Payments for Capital Assets (CAPEX) only accounts for R13.5 million of the total budgets. The Administration programme was allocated the highest portion of the budget (R59.8 million). This is due to the fact that the programme has to provide a strategic and effective support to the leadership. It is a key programme in making sure that the Department functions effectively. This is followed by the Public Sector Oversight programme where an amount of R57.8 million has been allocated for the same period. The purpose of this programme is to conduct institutional performance and frontline service delivery monitoring . Each programme in the Department’s budget would be described in detail hereunder.

 

4.1 Administration: Programme 1

 

This programme is allocated R59.8 million for 2012/13 financial year. When compared to the last financial year, the allocation has increased from R33.6 million to R59.8 million. The majority of this budget is earmarked for information technology and Corporate and Financial Services. The programme is responsible for providing strategic management and administration support to the Director General and the Department.

 

4.1.1 Strategic objectives of the programme

 

· To provide effective leadership based on the values of the department and good corporate governance principles;

· To establish and communicate internal policies and procedures; and

· To exercise oversight responsibility regarding financial and performance reporting, compliance and related internal controls.

The outputs outlined in this programme include development of credible strategic plans, annual performance, quarterly and annual reports and these will be developed according to National Treasury guidelines. Part of the outputs in this programme includes the development of a Risk Management Policy and Strategy. The targeted date was to get this approved in March 2012.

 

4.2 Outcome Monitoring and Evaluation: Programme 2

 

This programme was allocated R37.5 million for 2012/13 financial year. This showed an increase from R24.7 million to R37.5 million in the previous financial year. The Outcome Support has received R23.6 million, followed by the Evaluation and Research allocated R10.4 million.

 

4.2.1 Strategic objectives of the programme

 

· The programme is responsible for coordinating governments’ strategic agenda through the development of performance agreements between the President and Ministers, facilitation of the development of plans or delivery agreements for priority outcomes, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the delivery agreements.

· The programme also facilitates the planning related to 12 outcomes which have been prioritised, by supporting the outcome coordinating departments to produce the results based plans- or delivery agreements for each outcome.

· The programme also independently monitors and evaluates progress with the achievement of the outcomes.

· The programme also assists the President to monitor performance of individual Ministers against their performance agreements.

· The programme also supports the President and Deputy President and the Ministers in the Presidency with advice including briefing notes on Cabinet submissions.

· The Evaluation role of the Department is located in this programme. This includes providing technical support on evaluation and to ensure that evaluation findings are implemented.

The output outlined by the Department includes the development and monitoring of delivery agreements for all 12 outcomes adopted by relevant implementing forums by the 31 st of March for each year. In 2012/13, these agreements will be reviewed and revised where necessary by the implementation forums supported by the Department. Another performance indicator in this programme includes the submission of quarterly monitoring reports on each outcome to the Cabinet Committees. The target was to submit at least four quarterly monitoring reports to Cabinet by 2012/13 and in the MTEF. Part of the outputs in this programme includes the publishing of evaluation reports on government policies, plans, programmes and projects. This is targeted to be approved by Cabinet by December 2012 and in the MTEF. The department also intended to achieve 100 per cent of the evaluations managed by Evaluation Steering Committee of which the Department was a member.

 

4.3 Monitoring and Evaluation Systems Co-ordination and Support: Programme 3

This programme was allocated R19.0 million for the 2012/13 financial year. This has increased from the last financial year from R10.7 million to R19.0 million. This allocation is dominated by the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) data sub programme.

 

4.3.1 Strategic objectives of the programme

 

· The programme is responsible for coordinating and supporting an integrated government wide performance monitoring and evaluation system through policy development and capacity building. In addition, the main aim of this programme is to improve data access, data coverage, data quality, and data analysis across government.

· It is also responsible for creating policy platforms for the M&E system and building M&E capacity across government.

· It is also responsible for supporting data improvement in DPME and across government

The outputs in this programme include the improved M&E systems in national and provincial departments. The performance indicator for these outputs will be the percentage of national and provincial departments which have carried out performance assessments (MPAT) for consecutive years. In the 2012/13 MTEF the department has used percentages as targets to measures performance of different programmes for 2013/14 and 2014/15. Further to that, the Committee was concerned about the translation of targets into percentages instead of actual figures in the Annual Performance Plan (APP) and Strategic Plan as this was not in line with the framework or guidelines of the APPs and Strategic Plans.

 

 

 

 

 

4.4 Public Sector Oversight: Programme 4

 

Programme 4 was allocated an amount of R57.8 million for the 2012/13 financial year which has increased from R27.2 million in the 2011/12 financial year.

 

4.4.1 Strategic objectives of the programme

· To monitor the compliance and quality of management practices in all national and provincial departments on an annual basis;

· The on-site monitoring of the quality of frontline service delivery at 260 sites over the MTEF, and report on the findings; and

· To develop the Presidential Hotline as an effective monitoring and evaluation tool to strengthen government-wide citizens based monitoring.

 

5. Deliberations

 

The Committee expressed concern at the projected increase of expenditure on consultants and professional fees which has increased from R4.7 million in the 2011/12 financial year to R12.2 in the 2012/13 financial year. Part of the R12.2 million included the following allocations:

 

· R5 million to support evaluations under outcomes monitoring and evaluation;

· R1.3 million of supporting evaluations;

· R3.3 million under public sector oversight to support institutional performance and frontline service delivery monitoring; and

· R1.5 million for outsourced internal auditing functions

 

The amount allocated to consultants and professional fees would increase to R20 million at the end of the MTEF (2014/15 financial year).

 

Reference was made to the hiring of service providers to assist with evaluation and concerns were expressed since that was one of the core functions of the Department. The Committee stated that the Department needed to build its own capacity and expertise in that regard and not rely on service providers. The Department responded that it was international best practise to include external people to be part of the evaluation of performances since it made the outcomes of the process more credible. It was stated that the Human Science Research Council was used to assist with the Department’s first evaluation which was on Early Childhood Development. The point was made that 8 evaluations would be conducted during the 2012/13 financial year.

 

The Committee sought clarity on whether the outsourcing of the Department’s Internal Audit function was feasible and its impact on the Auditor General’s outcomes at the end of the financial year. The Department reported that an assessment was made in that regard and the outcome was that it would be more cost effective to outsource the Internal Audit function since the size of the institution was still small.

 

The Committee noted that the monitoring function of the Department was more focused on the National and Provincial Governmental Departments. Concerns were expressed that there was not sufficient monitoring of municipalities to which the Department concurred and also stated that it needed more capacity to deal with the matter. The point was made that additional funding would be requested from the National Treasury in order to address the matter.

 

The Committee made reference to the Presidential Hotline which accounted for a R32.5 million increase in the budgetary allocation under programme 4 for the 2012/13 financial year and over the remainder of the MTEF. Concerns were expressed at the Human Resource and Information Technological capacity of the Department to effectively deal with this added mandate. The Department responded that it would double the number of call centre operators in order to address the call-throttling challenges. Service providers were appointed to deal with the Information Technology and Telecommunications aspect of the Presidential Hotline. It was further reported that 122 589 cases have been logged from September 2009 to 31 January 2012 and that the call responsiveness has improved from 39 per cent in November 2009 to 80 per cent in January 2012.

 

7. Findings

 

Having considered the strategic plan and Budget Vote 6: Department in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, the Standing Committee on Appropriations found the following:

 

7.1 Having taken the nature of the Department into account as being that of monitoring and evaluating other national and provincial departments as well as municipalities, the Committee has however expressed concern at the reliance of the Department on consultants to assist with its core functions rather than to build its own internal capacity to perform the duties.

 

7.2 The Department proposed in its Strategic Plan, after consultation with the State Law Advisor that the Results Bill be passed by March 2015. This was a cause for concern given the fact that the Bill would give the Department more powers to execute its mandate more effectively and as such needed to be expedited.

 

7.3 The Administration programme was allocated the highest portion of the budget as opposed to the programmes dealing with Monitoring and Evaluation.

 

8. Recommendations

 

Having considered the Strategic Plan of the Department in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (2011/12 – 2015/16 period) and Budget for the 2012/13 financial year, the Standing Committee on Appropriations, recommends as follows:

 

8.1 That the Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation should ensure that the Department in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation expedites the process of introducing the Results Bill to Parliament.

 

8.2 That the National Assembly approves Budget Vote 6: Performance Monitoring and Evaluation for the 2012/13 financial year.

 

Report to be considered.