ATC080611: Report Budget Vote 9

Public Service and Administration

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration on Budget Vote 9 (Public Service Commission), dated 11 June 2008.

 

The Portfolio Committee received a briefing by the Public Service Commission (PSC) on Budget Vote 9 for 2008/09, on the 5 March 2008. The Committee deliberated on the budget presented, and reports as follows:

 

1.         Introduction and Overview

 

The Public Service Commission (PSC) is the only body empowered and constitutionally mandated to oversee and evaluate the functioning of the Public Service with a view to establishing good governance and best practice principles. Through its oversight, investigative and directing role, the PSC plays a significant role in transforming the Public Service. The PSC has revised its organizational structure to ensure that it fulfills its constitutional mandate and strengthens its strategic and operational support. Line functions have been restructured around six key performance areas, which translate into the PSC’s following strategic goals:

 

·            Monitoring and evaluation ;

·            Assessing service delivery and evaluating compliance;

·            Reviewing leadership and human resources;

·            Improving labour relations;

·            Investigating public administration; and

·            Promoting professional ethics.

 

The Deputy Director-General, Mr. MJ Diphofa, briefed the Committee on the PSC’s budget vote. He gave an overview of the strategic objectives of the Public Service Commission and how the budget allocated will be spent to fulfill the objectives the PSC has set itself.

 

It was indicated that the PSC has four programmes for 2008/09, instead of the 3 programmes it previously had. The Programmes are:

 

· Administration;

· Leadership and Management Practices;

· Monitoring and Evaluation; and

· Integrity and Anti-Corruption.

 

The new programme for the financial year 2008/09 is the Integrity and Anti-Corruption programme, which would focus on government-wide monitoring of integrity and anti-corruption.

 

2.        Budget allocation

 

The PSC was allocated a total budget of R111 172 000, which is a 2.71% increase from its allocated budget for 2007/08.

 

The budget is divided per programme as follows:

 

· Administration is allocated R56 487 000 for the financial year 2008/09. The objectives of Administration is to manage, organize and provide administrative support to the Public Service Commission and its office.

· Leadership and Management Practices is allocated R14 649 000 for the 2008/09 financial year. The purpose of this programme is to promote sound public service leadership, human resource management, labourrelations and labour practices. Objectives and measures include improvement of Public Service labour relations and policies by increasing the number of investigations of grievances and complaints finalized from 800 to 1000 in 2008/09.

· Monitoring and Evaluation is allocated R18 249 000. The purpose of this programme is to establish a high standard of service delivery, monitoring and good governance in the Public Service.

· Integrity and Anti-Corruption is allocated R21 787 000 for the 2008/09 financial year. The purpose of this programme is to undertake public administration investigations, promote a high standard of ethical conduct among public servants and contribute to preventing and combating corruption.

 

The Deputy Director General announced that the PSC was proud that it had a record of receiving unqualified audit reports for the previous seven years.

 

3.         Conclusion

The Committee adopts Budget Vote 9 for 2008/09.