Human Resource-related issues (incl organisational restructuring and filling of critical vacancies)

Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament

23 October 2020
Chairperson: Ms B Mabe (ANC) & Ms D Mahlangu (ANC, Mpumalanga)
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Meeting Summary

Video: Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament, (NA and NCOP) 23 Oct 2020

The Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament was briefed by the Secretary to Parliament on Human Resource-related issues in a virtual meeting.

The management of Parliament reported that on employment equity, there are currently 1 323 employees in Parliament. Of this, 824 employees are African representing 62% of the establishment; 373 are Coloured representing 28%; 37 are Indian representing 3% and 89 are White representing 7% of the establishment. With regards to gender representation, 607 or 46% of the establishment are males; and 716 or 54% of filled positions are held by females. The institution has strategies in place to address gender equity at management and specialist levels. Parliament has 11 employees with disabilities and there are plans in place to address poor representation of employees with disabilities. The presentation also said there was a decrease in voluntary resignations and there are retention strategies.

Only 22 employees or 2% of the establishment are below 30 years of age; 87 or 7% are between 30 and 34 years old and the majority of employees (989 or 76%) are located within the 35 to 54-year age category. 17% or 222 employees fall into the 55 and above category which effectively means that they qualify for early retirement and may leave the institution at any time. The current average age in the service is 46 years old. There are strategies to address the age profile and youth development.

Members remarked on the steadfastness of Parliament in complying with the Employment Equity Act and appreciated the retention strategy, leadership programmes, plans to improve the employment of people with disabilities and low resignation rate. Concerns were raised on the poor youth representation and how SA compared with other parliaments on these fronts. Members emphasised the need for strong training. Parliament needed to become the employer of choice. It could only do this if people were empowered accordingly.

Others Members raised the matter of female empowerment with respect to flexible working hours, crèche facilities and developments in this regard. Members questioned the appointment of a permanent Secretary to Parliament.

Meeting report

Committee Business
Chairperson Mabe started the meeting, requesting that the Committee Secretary go through attendance and apologies. The meeting would be shorter than previous meetings. She said that of late, the Committee was overworked, though that was how things were supposed to be. The Executive Authorities were invited to address Members before the presentation was made, if they wished to do so.

The Committee Secretary confirmed that the Executive Authoritity was not present in the meeting. She proceeded to confirm that apologies were received and confirmed there were a sufficient number of Members to proceed with the meeting, though quorum was not met to adopt the last two items on the agenda.

In light of this, the Chairperson said that it was important that an urgent special meeting be scheduled for the following week, so that they could process those last two items and avoid what had transpired with their previous tabling of Reports in Parliament. In the past, the Committee had tabled a Report a year after it was discussed. This caused much confusion and unhappiness. As such, she wanted a special meeting to be reconvened just to ensure the report and minutes were adopted.

Mr B Radebe (ANC) felt that before the meeting was scheduled, it was important to note which Members were booked off such as the two Members who were sick. Before the proposed meeting could be scheduled, there needed to be quorum on the side of the NCOP. If these Members were not present, they would not continue. It was also important to note that there was another Member that would be returning to Parliament only the following year.

Chairperson Mabe requested that this responsibility be given to Mr Radebe, in his capacity as a Whip of the ANC, especially because Members who were not in attendance were mainly from the ANC.

Mr Rabebe accepted this responsibility.

In the absence of the two Members of the NCOP, the Chairperson suggested having alternate Members from the NCOP that could serve the Committee in the future. This was something that needed to be looked at further within the ANC, which is why the assistance of Mr Radebe as Whip was needed. The Committee wanted to avoid what had happened previously, where Reports were tabled before the National Assembly a year after being discussed and Members were blamed for something that they did not have control over.

Report on Human Resources Related Matters

Ms Baby Tyawa, Acting Secretary to Parliament, began by introducing the presentation noting it was part of a sequel presented to the Joint Standing Committee. It had responded to a range of matters, following a meeting which took place in August. It had submitted on matters relating to the narrative: remuneration, grading of jobs, creating of budgets and parliamentary salary equality and inequality. As such, the bulk of matters had been addressed during meetings with the Committee in the previous year. These reports were submitted, as required, within the time given. The report on Human Resource (HR) matters was shared, which covered matters including management timelines, recruitment and management posts amongst others. Ms Tyawa then invited Mr Mmokonyana to proceed with taking the Committee through the presentation.

Mr Mpho Mokonyana, Human Resources Executive: Parliament, reported that on employment equity, there are currently 1 323 employees in Parliament. Of this, 824 employees are African representing 62% of the establishment; 373 are Coloured representing 28%; 37 are Indian representing 3% and 89 are White representing 7% of the establishment. With regards to gender representation, 607 or 46% of the establishment are males; and 716 or 54% of filled positions are held by females. The institution has strategies in place to address gender equity at management and specialist levels. Parliament has 11 employees with disabilities and there are plans in place to address poor representation of employees with disabilities. The presentation also said there was a decrease in voluntary resignations and there are retention strategies.

Only 22 employees or 2% of the establishment are below 30 years of age; 87 or 7% are between 30 and 34 years old and the majority of employees (989 or 76%) are located within the 35 to 54-year age category. 17% or 222 employees fall into the 55 and above category which effectively means that they qualify for early retirement and may leave the institution at any time. The current average age in the service is 46 years old. There are strategies to address the age profile and youth development.

The Chairperson welcomed the report thereafter opening the floor for discussion.

Discussion

Mr Radebe welcomed the report, though it was almost a year late.  Making some comments, he said that he appreciated the steadfastness of Parliament in complying with the Employment Equity Act, which was not anti-white or anti-male. The issue was to try as far as possible to reflect the demographics of the country. The retention strategy was also appreciated. The resignation rate was relatively low at 0.23% and showed that something good was being done. Mentorship is very important.

However, he noted  that the youth was represented very poorly among Parliament’s employment. This might be a blessing in disguise as it prompted a mentorship of youth into the system. It was important that the experiences of the old were shared with the young.

Another critical matter was how the South African Parliament compared with other parliaments, particularly in the South African Developing Community (SADC) region, especially when addressing concerns around equity, gender empowerment and those with disabilities. He was pleased about the leadership programme, but requested it be elaborated on, as he felt a strong emphasis on education and qualification was important from the time someone started and ended their time in the programme. It was important that these participants were trained, as they were not only being equipped for Parliament, but also for work outside of Parliament.

Overall, Mr Radebe said that he was very happy with the report. Parliament needed to become the employer of choice. It could only do this if people were empowered accordingly.

Mr T Brauteseth (DA, KZN) shared that he was the father of two daughters and therefore was very glad to see that their sisters (female colleagues) were being empowered. However, he needed to speak up for the mothers. While flexible working hours were welcomed, an issue for a long time was about the fact that most progressive companies around the world made sure that in their precinct, there was some sort of creche facility, so that mothers could bring their children to work and check on them during their breaks. Numerous studies had shown that this interaction was massively important for both the child and mother. He wanted to know what Parliament would do to consider various studies around this model and to consider whether some space or area in Parliament could be set aside for a creche facility for young children, so that mothers could bring their children to work.

Regarding ongoing costs, many moms were already paying for these services  and he was sure that mothers would be willing to contribute to this because of the convenience. It was known that above the Goodhope Centre, there had been an old bar, often frequented by the old National Party Minister. This was an area that Mr Brauteseth suggested could be repurposed as a creche and would not impact meetings. He knew that it was a big ask but felt Parliament should strongly consider it.

Ms O Maotwe (EFF) welcomed the presentation, though requested further information on the intersectionality of gender and race. She took issue with separating race and gender. These needed to also be dealt with further by analysing the intersection of the two. The presenters were commended for benchmarking themselves against the target as set by the Department of Labour. However, at category level, for example there was no description of race per female. She requested the same breakdown of the race of women. This would be helpful to understand other strategies.

She went on to ask about the Parliamentary Women’s Forum. What was the mandate and objective of this forum and how would Parliament achieve this? On resignations, she wanted to know if exit interviews were normally conducted to give insights on why people were leaving Parliament. Resignation rates had lowered and the question was, had COVID-19 played a role in this. Exit interviews might provide key information which would be useful for their retention strategy.

Ms Maotwe asked if there was knowledge management in place with breakdown of the age profile, such as to address the 17% of employees aged between 55  and 64 years to be able to transfer skills and knowledge. She also requested clarity on the matter of the position for Secretary to Parliament. This would be re-advertised, though they aimed to have the candidate starting on 1 April 2021. Were there reasons this was taking so long in terms of the planning itself?

Chairperson Mabe appreciated the presentations and questions, raising points of her own. The opening remarks had given her a sense of comfort in clarifying the allegations of discriminatory practices around remuneration based on gender. There was confirmation from HR that there was no such discriminatory practice and this was comforting. The second issue included matters of institutional memory. It had been presented that women were primarily employed in Parliament at an entry level, and recruitment for female senior and top management was not doing well. She wanted to emphasise this matter, which had previously been raised and requested a breakdown on it. She recommended that as and when positions were opened for senior management, internal recruitment took place first, before opening the position for external candidates. She did not see anyone who could be more qualified than those who were already within the system, so that they were able to grow.

The Chairperson was pleased with the intention to improve their recruitment of people with
disabilities, promising to monitor this as there was a policy mandating a 2% recruitment of people with disabilities. Even though it had taken some time to be updated, she thanked the Acting Secretary of Parliament for the update and invited her to respond.

Response

Ms Tyawa responded to questions raised, appreciating comments which would be dealt with.  Responding to the comment on the content of the courses,  she said that this was a certificate and not a degree and had modules such as Gender Bias, Development Leadership, Overcoming Barriers, Optimising Potential, Women as Strategic Leaders and Negotiating with Power. She confirmed that one or two Committee Members had gotten on to the courses.

The forum had in terms of reference, Executive and Honourable Members within the wellness unit looking at the wellbeing of female parliamentary officials, which developed their own terms of reference and executive. The wellness unit was run by women from varying departments such as research, content management, supply chain management etc. It was confident that this platform would grow the confidence of women in Parliament and ensure a succession in coaching and mentoring. A comparison had been initiated around the demographics of Parliaments in the SADC. They would use other examples. As far as she was aware, based on her attendance of meetings of Secretaries of Parliament, Ms Tyawa said that she was aware of only two countries where women were secretaries: Uganda and Botswana. The rest of the parliamentary positions were held by males who had been in these positions for decades.

In terms of the race and gender breakdown, there was such a breakdown, though it might not have been in the presentation. It would be shared with the Committee as it helped to monitor whether their strategies of intervening in bringing equality among women was effective. They had also established that having Parliament in Cape Town was quite a challenge simply because it was easier for males (than females) to uproot quickly with their families to Parliament in the Western Cape. They had lost many female candidates who had been successful in their appointment but were unable to uproot. This was an indication of the socialisation of gender equity. Parliament is dedicated to employing competent females.

The approach of internal advertisements for posts was taken. It had focused on this, though sometimes Parliament did not have a suitable candidate internally. The counter-argument was that while sometimes it wanted to appoint someone internally, there was also a need for “new-blood” as part of inclusion to Parliament.

1 April 2021 had been identified as the due date for the appointment of the Secretary to Parliament because being appointed by the two houses was a key factor. The risk of the House not sitting, for example, would bring about a challenge of getting names. There were also assumptions that the person who might be appointed for this job might also be appointed elsewhere. There needed to be time for resignations. The appointment might be earlier than 1 April. There would be a multi-party panel of interviews, which still needed to be scheduled under the guidance of the Executive Authority.

Referring to the history of the creche in Parliament, Ms Tyawa said that it was amazing. There had been a nursery school at Parliament, which was shut down. In the previous year, after the Sixth Parliament, they were looking for another suitable building, which was identified as a partnership with other Early Childhood Development (ECD) groups. After approaching the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, it was found that the previous building had been given to the Presidency. Ms Tyawa continued to share that they had looked at a number of factors around this matter. They had explored whether they could not find another building suitable for mothers, concluding that a partnership with an ECD would likely be the best way to proceed. The biggest matter that needed to be resolved with this was the location. She had asked the Speaker if it would be possible to retrieve the previous building used.

Mr Mokonyana addressed further matters raised, including the succession policy and exit interviews. Regarding mentoring, there had been a shift from an internship which ran for one year, to a graduate development programme, where there was a greater focus on mentorship and would run for three years. This would bring solid experience more than mere exposure, enabling the candidate to apply for employment elsewhere. The main concern about the internship was that one year was not enough for true mentorship. During the three-year programme, a young graduate, fresh from university could be mentored by various experts within the institution with the aim that this graduate would be employed in Parliament at the end of the three years, other legislatures or elsewhere in the country. Parliament had taken on a small group of graduates, despite the institution recommending they take on more than 40. The approach was to bring in 40 graduates for the programme because it was a manageable number, to make sure they were comfortable with the process of mentoring and growing young graduates in the organisation. They would come back and report to the committee on the progress with graduates.

He confirmed that Committee Members were correct on the issues of knowledge management and institutional memory. Since it was keeping an eye on who was leaving, one of the challenges it was dealing with was that there was a need for a structured programme, to ensure skills and knowledge was transferred between those leaving and entering positions. There was no such  programme at the time of the meeting, though Parliament wanted to develop one. Exit interviews had been put in place to try mitigate concerns and this was included in slide 11 and 14 of the presentation. The list of concerns was not exhaustive and there were other issues raised by ex-colleagues that were yet to be addressed as they were limited by financial constraints. For example, the issue of high living expenses in Cape Town. It had considered whether it was possible to identify accommodation that could be offered to colleagues on fixed-term contracts, or those in the offices of presiding officers. The challenges in dealing with this was firstly, unavailability of accommodation and the nature of employment contracts. It was difficult for someone to leave a job at C-Band and apply for a job on contract. In the past, it had been observed that an employee was ready, had the skills for a top management position, but they were scared to make the next leap into a senior post, purely because of it being a fixed-term contract. Over time, as this decision came to be reviewed, it had gone a long way to stabilise the retention of colleagues. This was very positive in terms of institutional memory.

Regarding individuals with disabilities, Parliament was glad that the Committee would be monitoring them, as they too wanted to make a difference. It believed that this was an area they needed to work on and were thus working closely with organisations such as South Africa Riding for the Disabled Association (SARDA). Over and above employment of disabled persons, Parliament also wanted to make sure there was awareness and understanding of the challenges experienced faced by those living with disabilities. This was also an opportunity to review policies to be more accommodating to people living with disabilities.

Chairperson Mabe thanked the colleagues for their responses, adding that the Committee would keep an eye on their efforts. It hoped that when it came to present in the following financial year, achievements would be made.

Further Committee business
Mr Brauteseth said that he had read through the previous minutes and noted the undertaking by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI). He asked whether the DPWI would be providing the promised documents within seven days, which was the time of the meeting. Would they indeed be handing over this information or would the Portfolio Committee again be messed around by the DPWI?  It needed answers to these questions. The other documents that were due to be dealt with in the meeting, but could not because the Committee did not meet chorum, were documents from a discussion held in August 2019.  He asked if it was acceptable to the Committee that over a year later the question about the remuneration of people was still outstanding.

Chairperson Mabe responded that it was certainly not acceptable that when they raised questions they were responded to after 12 months. It was also not acceptable that when they approved responses, it took a year to be tabled before Parliament. These were not “by the way” issues. They existed equally with other departments of Parliament. There was one issue beyond the Committees control and that was the matter of chorum, as had been discussed earlier in the meeting. From the ANC side, there was an undertaking by Mr Radebe, who would make a follow-up requiring chorum to process issues. It could not blame members who were not present in the meeting from the NCOP, as this was due to ill-health. They did not abscond.

Mr Brauteseth clarified that he was not making an attack on the Committee, he thought it was great. His problem was with Parliament not listening to them.

Chairperson Mabe said that she had felt she raised the matter with the Committee because in the previous house sitting it was terribly embarrassed by having tabled a report a year later. With regards to Parliament providing responses, there was a policy on responses to Parliament. If an undertaking had been made on this, it was compulsory that such a report found its way to the members on the fixed date at the latest.

The Committee Secretary clarified on the matter raised about the seven working days deadline for the documents from Parliament. She confirmed that she had been in communication with the DPWI. It had assumed that the seven-day deadline meant seven working days, giving it until the following Tuesday. On the HR documents referred to dated August 2019, those were shared as a reminder. Originally the meeting was scheduled to take place much earlier. The reports and minutes outstanding were from August 2020. Unfortunately, this could not be done without chorum and from the NCOP side members could not be co-opted for this.

Mr Brauteseth apologised to the Committee Secretary confirming that she was correct that the deadline was infact seven working days. He drew on his experience from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), where when a department promised something the Chairperson was very good at following up when they did not comply. Mr Brauteseth wanted the Committee to have the same sense of pride, that when Departments did not report back on time, they were held accountable to respect the Committee. He asked the Chairpersons to consider taking this stance if the documents were not provided by the deadline.

Chairperson Mabe agreed that this was a fair request and monitoring and accountability would occur.

Co-Chairperson Mahlangu reiterated these sentiments, sharing that she had requested the Committee Secretary to write to the DPWI to remind them of their deadline. They agreed on matters of accountability.

The meeting was adjourned.
 

Present

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