ATC220324: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration on consideration of the first, second and third quarter performance 2021/22 financial year for the budget vote 07 of the National School of Government, Dated 23 March 2022

Public Service and Administration

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration on consideration of the first, second and third quarter performance 2021/22 financial year for the budget vote 07 of the National School of Government, Dated 23 March 2022

 

BACKGROUND

The Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) having considered first, second and third quarter performance of 2021/22 financial year of National School of Government, reports as follows:

 

INTRODUCTION

Parliament through its Committees has a constitutional responsibility to oversee quarterly programme performance information of the departments and their entities in a specific financial year. The Money Bills Amendment and Related Matters Act (2009) describe the process of exercising this responsibility. The Act states that portfolio committees of parliament must conduct reviews of the finances of their respective departments and entities and if required, issue recommendations on the forward use of resources.

Programme performance information focuses on information that is collected by government departments in the course of fulfilling their mandates and implementing policies. Quarterly performance reports serve as a vital tool used by parliamentary committees to ensure accountability, transparency and oversight on how government resources are spent. Committees are expected to monitor both financial and non-financial performance of the departments. The Public Finance Management Act of 1999 guides the Department to do quarterly performance reports. The Public Finance Management Regulations compel departments and their entities to prepare quarterly report within 30 days after the end of each quarter. Committees conduct oversight over performance reports to fulfil Parliament’s oversight and accountability mandates as enshrined in the Constitution and under the rules established by the National Assembly.

On March 09, 2022, the Committee considered the first, second and third quarter performance of 2021/22 of the National School of Government. Performance information was in accordance with the Strategic Plan, Annual Performance Plan and Medium Term Strategic Framework 2020-2025. The report further provides an overview of the presentations made before the Committee mainly focusing on the achievements, output in respect of the performance indicators and targets set for the above mentioned financial year. The report outlines the findings/observations of the Committee relating to the National School of Government performance. 

 

LEGISLATIVE MANDATE

 

Section 197 of the Constitution provides for a public service within public administration, which must function, and be structured, in terms of national legislation, and which must loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day.  The NSG, as a national public service department, thus draws its mandate from national legislation – the Public Service Act, 1994 (Proclamation 103 of 1994), as amended. This is the core mandate which establishes the NSG for it to fulfil a function of providing training or causing the provision of training to occur within the public service. Accordingly, section 4 of the Act provides the following mandate:

 

There shall be a training institution listed as a national department (in Schedule 1 of the Act).

 The management and administration of such institution shall be under the control of the Minister (Public Service and Administration).

Such institution, shall provide such training or cause such training to be provided or conduct such examinations or tests or cause such examinations or tests to be conducted as the Head of the institute may with the approval of the Minister decide or as may be prescribed as a qualification for the appointment or transfer of persons in or to the public service. The School may issue diplomas or certificates or cause diplomas or certificates to be issued to persons who have passed such examinations.

 

Whilst this piece of legislation empowers the NSG to fulfil its mandate, the limitation of the Public Service Act is that it is applicable to the national and provincial spheres of government. Another piece of enabling legislation - Public Administration Management Act, 2014 (Act No. 11 of 2014) - gives effect, inter alia, to the progressive realisation of the values and principles governing public administration across the three spheres of government.

 

STRATEGIC GOALS OF THE NSG

The NSG strategy is aligned to the MTSF as well as the performance agreement of the MPSA and is able to contribute to all of the aforementioned outcomes through ETD interventions, for example the reduction of wasteful, fruitless and irregular expenditure in public sector institutions; the reduction in incidents of corruption in the public sector; socio-economic rights; and gender mainstreaming in public sector institutions. The NSG has, with a focus on social compact and engagement with citizens, developed and implemented ETD interventions in supporting the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights of communities. This programme aims to capacitate Community Development Workers (CDWs), facilitate participatory community engagement for Ward Councillors, and Traditional Leaders for socioeconomic development.

 

The NSG responds to outcome 3 (professional, meritocratic and ethical public administration), and its contribution will be measured by the following outputs:

•   A compulsory in-service training framework that is approved by 2020 and 8 compulsory programmes rolled out by 2022.

•  The recognition of professionals in the public sector by a professional body by 2023 (working in partnership with the Department of Public Service and Administration).

 

 

BUDGET AND PROGRAMME PERFORMANCE

Programme	Annual Budget 2021/22	April to December Pro-rata budget 2021/22	April to December  Actual Expenditure 2021/22	April to December Variance budget compared to actual (over)/under	April to December  Expenditure as % of pro-rata budget
	R'000	R'000	R'000	R'000	%
1. Administration	109,170	81,330	79,761	1,569	98%
2. Public Sector Organisational and Staff Development	101,019	75,258	75,258	-	100%
Total Vote Expenditure	210,189	156,588	155,019	1,569	99%
	R'000	R'000	R'000	R'000	%

5.1 Budget Analysis

The School’s overall budget allocation for 2021/22 was R210.2 million and spent R156.6 million by December 2021. The budget of the School is divided into two programmes, which share the allocated budget almost equally. Programme 1: Administration consumes 51.9 per cent (R81.3m) of the budget allocation and expenditure stands at R79.7 million. Programme 2: Public Sector Organisational and Staff Development has spent R75.2 million from the budget allocation of R75.2 million. Spending for 9 months was at 74% of the annual budget and 99% of the year to date budget. The underspending was on capital assets due to late delivery of computer equipment.

Training revenue was at 45% of annual budget as the result of remote working due to the lockdown resulting in face-to-face training being slow and self learning taken up by our clients. Training numbers (39,603) consisted of 15,421 from revenue and 21,621 free courses. Prepayments from previous year of R31.4 million has been trained in this year and included the revenue. Balance of prepayment still to be trained at end of December were R93.6 million. The transfer allocation of R75.2 million for the period ensured that the NSG can fulfil its obligations for compensation of employees and running costs. Compensation of employees was under spending by R7.6 million due to vacant posts. The NSG was at the final stage of implementation of the new structure.

In terms of the Human Resource Management, the NSG has a total of 229 posts on the organisational structure. Of the total number of posts, 207 posts have been filled and 22 vacant resulting into the vacancy rate of 9.6%. Of the 22 vacant posts, 6 posts are SMS whilst 16 are non SMS posts. The vacant posts are due to the repositioning of the NSG and budget ceiling on compensation of employees. The NSG has fair representation of gender which was 58.5% females, females in SMS was 51.2%, youth at 21.3% and persons living with disabilities at 2.4%.

Budget allocation and expenditure

 

Programme 1: Administration

The purpose of the Administration Programme (Programme 1) is to facilitate overall management of the School and provides for responsibilities of the Principal, Branch Heads and other members of management. These responsibilities include providing centralised administrative, legal and office support service, human resource and financial management, communication, special projects, international relations, and internal controls and oversight.

Programme 1 has a total of nine predetermined targets for the 2020/21 financial year. All targets were achieved in first, second and third quarter performance.

 

Programme 2: Public Sector Organisational and Staff Development

The Public Sector Organisational and Staff Development Programme (Programme 2) is responsible for facilitating transfer payments to the Training Trading Account for management development and training of public sector employees.

Programme 2 has seven predetermined targets of the 2021/22 financial year. Of seven targets, the NSG has achieved four targets and three were not achieved in the first, second and third quarter performance. Among targets not achieved include the low uptake of revenue generating courses which results less revenue being generated. However, the School aim to strengthen partnership with departments and signing of Memorandum of Agreement for revenue generating courses that will result in an upward trend and increase the revenue generation.

Moreover, the target on amendments to the NSG Accreditation letter requested by PSETA. The NSG committed to follow up and finalise the PSETA accreditation. Of critical targets not achieved was number of uptake of 20% of senior managers in the public service trained on how to deal with all forms of discrimination. The DPSA has issued circular to all national and provincial departments for the uptake of the course Championing Antidiscrimination in the public service.  

 

FINDINGS AND OBSERVATIONS

The Portfolio Committee made the following observations and findings:

The Committee notes and welcomed the first, second and third quarter performance of 2021/22 financial year for the National School of Government. The Committee was pleased with performance of both financial and non-financial performance of the School.

In terms of restructuring, the School was almost at the final stage of the implementation of the new approved structure aligned to the new mandate of education, training and development as per the PAM Act.

The NSG vacancy rate was at 9.6% due to the repositioning of the School and budget ceiling on compensation of employees. The Committee encouraged the School to fast track filling of vacancies.

The NSG has entered into memorandum of understanding with the Department of Human Settlements to compel all its board members appointed by the department to attend compulsory induction programme offered by the School. The Committee urged the School to lobby other government departments and entities to ensure all board members appointed in the public administration undergo compulsory induction programme within three months of their appointment with the School.

The NSG revenue collection remain a major challenge, R53.5 million has been collected due to low uptake of revenue generating courses which results into less revenue being generated. However, the Committee remain optimistic that the effort of building partnership with departments and signing of MOU for revenue generating courses will yield results.  The Committee encourage the School to work towards achieving objective of being self-sustainable institution.

The Committee notes and welcomed an update on the Framework for the Professionalisation of the Public Service which will soon be presented to the Cabinet after having incorporated all public comments.

The Committee was pleased with high uptake of NSG courses in the National Departments, Gauteng, Eastern Cape and North West Provinces, however remain concerned about the low uptake of NSG courses in other remaining provinces which are Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Free State. The School was encouraged to approach Premier Offices to enlighten them about courses offered by the NSG and their relevancy in ameliorating performance in the public service.  

The Committee encouraged NSG to ensure that the Ethical leadership and Executive Oversight course do not have low enrolment in provinces and that interventions should be put in place to encourage high uptake. The Committee further welcomes announcement that the School was engaging the Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education on the design of ethics courses in their curriculums.

The Committee encouraged the School to develop Consequence and Compliance Course particularly for the Executive Management to ensure that there is improvement around compliance.

 

6. The Portfolio Committee recommends as follows:

6.1       The House adopts and approve first, second and third quarter performance report of the Budget Vote 07 of the National School of Government.

 

Report to be considered