DPSA; National School of Government; Centre for Public Service Innovation; Public Service Commission; DPME; NYDA; Statistics SA on their 2014/15 Annual Reports

Meeting report

The Chairperson said that the purpose of the meeting was to be briefed by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) on its 2014/15 Annual Report, and also to be briefed by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and its entities on its 2014/15 Annual Report. Earlier, in a closed session, the Committee was briefed by the Office of the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) on the audit findings.

DPME 2014/15 Annual Report: Minister’s briefing

Mr Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, said that the Ministry had executive authority over the DPME, the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) and Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

The mandate of the DPME was the institutionalisation of planning and strengthening the linkages between the planning and monitoring and evaluation functions, monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), improving responsiveness to the needs of the public and enhancing the ability of the government to deliver on its mandate.

The mandate of the National Youth Development Agency was lobbying and advocating for integration and mainstreaming of youth development in all spheres of government, the private sector and civil society, initiating, implementing, facilitating and coordinating youth development programmes, monitoring and evaluating youth development interventions across the board and mobilising youth for active participation in civil society engagement.

The mandate of Statistics South Africa was the production and dissemination of quality official statistics in line with the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, the African Charter on Statistics and the Statistics Act No. 6 of 1999, in order to support evidence-based decision-making and policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation.

The Minister said that in terms of integrating performance in order to be effective in their planning and implementation, and to ensure that government programmes impacted positively on the youth, they needed the quality statistical evidence which Stats SA must provide. To this end, they had initiated a process for operational cooperation amongst the three entities. DPME and Stats SA were working at developing a cost-effective way of producing real-time statistics that would assist with the planning and monitoring of the 14 government priorities.

For the 2014/15 year, excellent audit outcomes had been achieved by all the entities. The DPME and STATS SA had received a clean audit for three consecutive years, and the NYDA a clean audit for the first time.

The DPME had recorded good progress during the reporting period. It had managed the process of translating the National Development Plan (NDP) into the 2014-2019 Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) that outlined the key government programmes and activities to realise the NDP: Vision 2030. Cabinet had approved the MTSF in August 2014. Further to this, the DPME had facilitated the development and signing of performance agreements based on the MTSF between all the Ministers with the President. This served to enhance accountability in government. It had assessed all national and provincial strategic and annual performance plans (APPs) and provided guidance regarding alignment with the NDP and the MTSF. In collaboration with outcome coordinating departments, the DPME had tabled quarterly monitoring reports on progress in the implementation of the NDP. Cabinet used the monitoring reports to identify challenges and measures to address blockages. It had supported the Presidency in driving Operation Phakisa to improve planning and implementation of policies and programmes. During the reporting period, Operation Phakisa had been successfully launched in the ocean economy and health sectors.

The Minister said the DPME had made good progress in evaluating the impact of priority government programmes, policies and projects critical for the NDP Vision. During 2014/15, six evaluation reports had been completed and submitted to Cabinet. To date, a total of 39 evaluations were underway, covering around R50bn of Government expenditure. Key findings of the evaluations conducted in priority areas such as basic education, health, economic growth and job creation were used to drive improvements in these programmes. The DPME had assisted five provinces to develop provincial evaluation plans. The realisation of an efficient, effective and development-oriented public service remained a key focal area, to enhance the ability of government to deliver on its mandate. In this regard, DPME had assessed 96% of national and provincial departments through the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) and assessed 30 municipalities -- in excess of the targeted 20 -- according to the Local Government Municipal Improvement Model (LGMIM).

Promoting responsiveness to the needs of the public was a key objective in the work the DPME. To this end, both the Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring Programme and the Presidential Hotline had been implemented. In 2014, a target of 90 unannounced visits and 120 follow-up visits had been set. 123 new facilities had been visited and 123 re-visits had been conducted. In 65% of the facilities revisited, facility managers had acted on the recommendations for improvements. The DPME had produced 39 case studies from complaints lodged with the Presidential Hotline, and four complaints trend reports. Good progress had been made with the institutionalisation of Citizen-Based Monitoring (CBM) in Government in the past year. 18 frontline facilities with over 12 000 citizen interviews and more than 750 staff surveys had been conducted. The frontline facilities had included police stations, health facilities, the South African Social Security Agency and Department of Social Development service points.

To implement the National Development Plan and address the challenges facing the youth, the DPME had initiated the development of the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2020. The policy had been thoroughly consulted with all youth formations in the country, and had been launched in June 2015. The NYP 2020 had also included policy proposals for optimising government’s youth development machinery for effective delivery and responsiveness as part of the overall effort of developing a capable and developmental state. The DPME had supported the President as the political champion of the African Union (AU) Presidential Infrastructure Championing Initiative, and in particular the North/South Road and Rail Corridor. This initiative advanced the Africa Agenda 2063.

The Minister said the key NYDA achievements in terms of economic participation had been that 1 034 youth-owned enterprises or youths had received NYDA grant funding, 62 916 aspiring and established young entrepreneurs had been supported through NYDA business development services, and 4 343 jobs had been created and sustained through NYDA grant funding, co-operatives and business development services.

In education and skills development, 5 319 young people had been enrolled in the Matric rewrite programme, 2 342 young people had participated in structured youth build programmes, and 937 949 young people had been provided with one-on-one and group career guidance sessions.

100% of all service delivery targets had been met and the achievement of the highest organisational performance in history of 93%, with more than 1.2 million young people receiving youth development information.

The NYDA had initiated an organisational restructuring that would seek to align the human resources with the vision, mission and mandate of the organization, and that would result in the reduction of the salary bill of the NYDA from R189 million (46% of budget) to R127 million (31% of budget).

The improved governance of the NYDA was reflected in the audit report, with a reduction of irregular expenditure from R133 million to R580 000, and a reduction in matters of non-compliance from 10 to zero.

The Minister highlighted key achievements at Stats SA in terms measuring changes in the economy. They had published 230 statistical releases and reports on agriculture, mining, manufacturing, electricity, construction, trade, transport, government, finance, services. They had measured changes in the society, publishing 38 statistical releases and reports on changes in the population, employment, living conditions, service delivery, poverty, vital events, education, health and crime. The community survey had employed modernized methodology for improved efficiency and effectiveness. The Geospatial Information Frame had geo-referenced 14.8 million dwelling points. They had initiated a process for the strengthening of the South African National Statistics System that would ensure coordinated and inclusive statistical production, dissemination and use by key organs of state.

The Minister concluded that the Ministry had done well during the period under review. Going forward and to enable continuous improvement, there was a need for an adequate allocation of financial and human resources. He thanked Members of the Portfolio Committee for their continued support and guidance.

Discussion
The Chairperson expressed appreciation for the presentation from the Minister and his team. She also congratulated the Department for adhering to good governance practices, which sentiments were shared by the Auditor General (AG). The Chairperson also congratulated the NYDA for its first ever clean audit, and hoped it would sustain that clean audit through its leadership.

The Chairperson said that in the morning closed session with the AG’s office, one of the issues raised with the Portfolio Committee had been in relation to the Office of the Minister, where it had been stated that the Department was not adhering to the payment of service providers within the prescribed time. The Department should lead by example, since they were the custodians of this programme. If the Department expected other departments to pay service providers on time while it was not doing so itself was a bit problematic.

The AG had also stated that the Department had no systems in place to ensure its smooth running after the end of the financial year. The other thing it lacked was the review of its human resource plan. It had been noted that human resource plans were reviewed annually. The Department should also look at the issue of Information Technology (IT), which was not up to date.

Ms R Lesoma (ANC) said that the clean audit report of the Department and its entities was much appreciated and made them proud. She said the IT problem was with the recovery system, which was present throughout the government departments. She was sure that the ICT was working on that issue, but DPME needed to pay more attention on that matter. With the filling of vacancies in the lower structures -- although it was very confusing --the AG had agreed that in future they would separate the reports in terms of the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and the Department of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) when they briefed them as a Committee. However, with the top management, they had an issue with how they intended to move forward with that aspect of filling vacancies.

Ms Lesoma said that in relation to Stats SA, the AG had raised an ongoing concern in terms of the 2011/12 investigations. She was sure that the Minister would shed some light on that matter, although there were a few disagreements based on their experience as Members of the Committee, with what the AG was saying. However, the Chairperson would conclude on that issue in terms of how they would move forward with it. Because the Department’s management system was not up to scratch, its performance was not consistent. The assessment and performance of their plans, moving forward, lay squarely in the office of the Minister. She appreciated that performance contracts had been signed with all the Ministers which were linked with their oversight, and would like to hear something in that regard.

Mr M Ntombela (ANC) said that they had been with the AG, and issues of perpetual deficiencies had been indicated. Some departments were affected by mistakes that were recurring. He asked what opinion the Department had regarding the outcomes in deficiencies that had been identified by AG. Was the Department happy with the outcomes of the AG’s report, or was there something to be done to address those outcomes?

Mr A van der Westhuizen (DA) congratulated the Department on the clean audit. He referred to the annual report, where it was indicated that accruals and payments had not been recognised. In the previous financial year, the total of those accruals had amounted to R2.2m and currently they had gone up to R3.6m, which was a more than 50% increase. Therefore, there should be a commitment from the Department which guaranteed that this trend would be reversed and there would not be the same problem again. It could also be seen from the financial statements that more than R1 million of that amount had been outstanding for 30 days, which was a matter of concern, especially as that figure seemed to have increased consistently.

He said the AG had drawn their attention to the fact that sometimes some of the achievements reported on had been achievements outside time periods -- outside this year -- and it was something the Department should tighten up on and make sure that they were really achievements of the last 12 months. There were words that had raised some concern, like “commitments made in previous years were not implemented due to slow response by accounting officers”. The accounting officer referred was no longer there, due to changes. It was the Minister that should hold the accounting officer accountable, and commitments made should in future be kept, so that they could see a favourable AG report in the next annual cycle.

Mr S Motau (DA) said that he agreed with the Minister in terms of governance, and said that R133m of irregular expenditure being reduced to R580 000 was a good thing.

He asked what had happened with regard to the National Youth Development Programme. It had set five targets, and none of them had been particularly achieved.

He asked the Minister to clarify the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) which the Department had used to assess 96% of the national and provincial departments. They had done the assessment -- and then what? Could they say they had now taken remedial plans and they had 100% of what they wanted in terms of developing an efficient and effective public service? What could be done to ensure that these departments did implement the recommendations from the AG so that they could achieve an efficient and effective public service. It was not that they did not have effective consequence management.

Ms Z Dlamini-Dubazana (ANC) referred to the Department’s mandate for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), saying that the Members had talked of the outcomes of the AG which were due to the failure of coordination of the MTSF, which was supposed to be used by the AG or coordinate the instrument that was there, mixed with the outcomes. The AG gave his outcomes because of what had been submitted to him. The question they needed to ask was whether all the national and provincial departments understood how to implement the MTSF, because it was a document that had been approved by Cabinet. Every time they listened to the AG, there were so many loopholes in his report. There was no consistency and accuracy, and some parts lacked information. She said that this would be linked to Stats SA, where in one of its programmes it needed to ensure that it fed the DPME with the outcomes of the MTSF on a quarterly basis so that they knew when the Department was not doing well in order to implement effective consequence management.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana said that they should also look what that was saying to the MPAT, because it was more like the focus was on the Minister. The Department was also supposed to evaluate the DG. One should ask why some Departments did not evaluate them, because they were the people that were sitting with their fiscus, and were the people that sat on their administration. Collaboration between the Department, and being part of Stats SA, would assist Members of the Committee to say there was an alignment, there was evaluation and they were able to do the monitoring, because the complaint was that the Department did get information, but nothing was being done.

Mr Van der Westhuizen was concerned that in the Minister’s report it had been indicated that 123 facilities had been visited just to monitor and follow-up on recommendations. It was upsetting that of the 123 facilities, 18 had responded, but 43 of those facilities’ managers had not acted on the recommendations for improvements. He asked what the consequences were for the managers who did not respond, because it was clear that in most of the facilities, money had been wasted. They could have the best of plans, but their impact was not being felt and much of their work was in vain.

Mr Ntombela said that the filling of vacancies was one of the challenges of the Department. He asked if the human resources of the Department were well capacitated to deal with that challenge, and what had caused the delay in filling the vacancies. He asked whether the NYDA had the capacity to push its programme that it had just rolled out, especially in the rural areas. Was the Presidential hotline linked to municipalities -- was it well coordinated, effective and efficient? He asked what the outcomes of the financial statistics in municipalities were, and how that information contributed in the measuring of the financial performance of municipalities. How much was SALGA involved in this regard?

The Chairperson asked how the local government Municipal Assessment Model, which had not yet been presented to the Committee but was part of the Minister’s presentation, had been received by municipalities. What impact did it have, since the Department had assessed only 30 out of 284 municipalities? Would they go to all the municipalities, and what timeframe did they envisage to complete the assessment?

She asked how effective the Citizen-Based Monitoring System had been, because so far the Department had visited 18 facilities, and given the service delivery protests in the country, what had informed the visits and what criteria had they used to select areas they had visited?

Mr Ntombela asked what the Department was using to give feedback to the public in terms of the Citizen-Based Monitoring System, because a website was not accessible to most members of the public. Was there any other tool they were using to give feedback to the public at large?

Ms Lesoma asked what the role of the Government Communication Information Services was in this regard, because it was supposed to be the marketing tool of the government.

The Chairperson asked what the NYDA was doing about its branding because it was involved in many youth programmes but not visible in terms of its brand.

Department’s response

The Minister responded that the Department should come and brief the Committee on the issue of payments within the prescribed time, in order to indicate the actual statistics of the programme, and sometimes the lack of them, from the national government departments and provinces. The latest statistics indicated that there had been improvement and that the DPME was not one of those departments which did not pay within 30 days.

The Department had a vacancy rate of 9%, and part of the initiative was that they had a new department that was called Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. They were busy dealing with the issue of the new organogram to create capacity in order for the department to be properly and strategically positioned to play its role of supervising government’s performance in terms of service delivery. They would come back to the Committee to indicate the strides they were making there.

The Minister said that they did not have time to explain on the issue of agreements. They had signed agreements with all the Ministers in order to hold them accountable for the 14 outcomes that were indicated in the MTSF. Ministers in turn had to sign performance agreements with their DGs and heads of departments, and this had to be cascaded downwards. The simple reason for all of this was that there had to be consequence management in the event of a lack of performance.

Ms Kefiloe Masiteng, Deputy Director General: Population Statistics, Statistics South Africa, said that the first question came from their report, under financial and performance management, where it had been asked whether they had been content with the findings and understood them, and importantly, what they were doing about them. The first thing to understand was where the challenges came from and, more than the issue of skills and competency, it was also about building the culture of reporting and making sure that measurement became the culture and the order of the day in terms of how they did their work. This was what they were working on.

Firstly, they had started to look at the prospects of holding each other accountable, as this report and the findings from the AG would go to EXCO and be discussed, to try and inculcate the culture of paying attention to the details in a manner that would allow them to improve the content they provided to the AG. In their learning curve, these were some of the undertakings they had put in place. This report would form part of their agenda in EXCO.

Secondly, they had inculcated a culture of making sure non-compliance letters were issued to executive managers that did not provide information. They were hoping that this would improve their level of accountability.

Ms Masiteng said that the important issue which had arisen from this report was the relationship between the AG and the Department. This needed to be strengthened to make sure there was a better understanding of their work and how they responded to the questions that came from them.

It was important to understand the stature of Stats SA as a professional environment, where every time they filled a position they had people who had been working for the entity for 30 years, so when one moved the successor came from internally. This meant they had a stagnant type of vacancy situation, and while they were looking at other senior staff, they also started building and growing the tree from below using interns. The entity had capacity and skills, with a high turnover rate at lower levels. They recruited graduates who came with B.Com Economics or B.Com Statistics degrees, but they entered at level 6.

Ms Lesoma interjected that Ms Masiteng did not understand the question, which was that there was a feeling that there was long turnaround over the filling of vacancies.

Ms Masiteng said that there had been a follow-up question which had asked whether they had the capacity to fill vacancies, and in that context they had a high level of graduates from universities who stayed with them for six to nine months and then moved on for better salaries. As from 31 March 2015, 49% of the positions that were vacant from the 9% vacancy rate indicated in the report, were already in the recruitment process. The average time for filling a vacancy was six months, and they were working continuously -- even at weekends and public holidays if they had to -- in order to make sure they delivered on their mandate.

Referring to the investigation, she said that it had ended up in being a dispute between Stats SA and the AG, where the Accountant General had been asked to come in because the AG had said they had flawed the procurement procedures. The dispute had been around procurement procedures, and had nothing to do with any invoices. It was a matter of whether the procurement process had been followed in a fair, transparent and efficient manner. However, they were working with the office of the Accounting General to sort out and declare finer details in order to get the outcomes of the report.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana endorsed the statement made by Ms Masiteng because tomorrow they might read about the issue in the newspaper and feel that they were misleading the country. This was what they were saying in the morning -- that the findings of the AG on the investigation of Stats SA was talking about an investigation on the 2011 census, and the AG reporting on it as being negligence for not following the investigation of procurement. Therefore, the Executive needed to sit in Cabinet and discuss this issue with the AG, because this reporting gave a wrong image.

Mr Tshediso Matona, Acting DG: DPME, said the survey of the quarterly financial performance of municipalities had two primarily important uses, the first being the development of the national account statistics for the GDP. The municipalities formed quite an important sector of the economy because they were involved with so many industries in terms of water supply, electricity supply and services production. Therefore, they needed to get an idea quarterly of what happened with their finances, but did not have a view at the same time as to whether the money had been spent appropriately or not -- just to know what money had come in and what money had gone out.

He said that SALGA was a very important user, both in terms of giving them input if they wanted to change the questionnaires as a result of a report which included more information, as well as the analysis of the data. They also found that when they did workshops at different municipalities, they showed them how the municipality’s financials looked compared with the problem averages for that municipality. It was quite useful for the municipalities to judge themselves against similarly defined municipalities.

Mr Yershen Pillay, Chairperson: National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) said that their zero approach to irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure had gone to a positive trajectory. In the last two years, the reduction of R133m to R580 000 had been quite significant, but they were currently sitting on zero in this financial year. They were committed to ensuring that it remained zero right through to March next year.

On the issue of the five targets not met, those targets referred to the youth desk, not the NYDA, and he would not be able to comment on them.

Regarding the entity’s capacity, Mr Pillay said the new structure was going to further capacitate their 14 branches and offices, especially with more training and community outreach officers who would be deployed into communities on the ground. The current target was to reach 1.2 million young people in rural areas with some kind of service information. They were currently sitting on 800 000, and in the remaining four to five months they should reach the target of 1.2 million. Because of their improvement in governance, the Services Skills Education Training Authority (SETA) had also given them a further R40m to recruit interns to get a stipend, so that they had more service offices. They had an enhanced capacity to reach more than 1.2 million.

They had taken a note of the need for improving their branding and would be doing that, based on the inputs of the Committee.

The Minister referred to the issue of the AG, saying that since he had been appointed as Minister of the DPME last year he had had two meetings with the AG. At neither of those meetings had they discussed the DPME, because even though they had not said it, the assumption was that in terms its performance, there were no matters that required them to look at them page by page. They had thought of giving him a report on the performance of government as a whole, in their capacity as people who had to monitor performance. The content of their discussion had been how to go forward with their two respective offices, and to cooperate in terms of the operations of the two offices so that they complemented each other, rather than conflicting with each other. However, in view of the comments the Committee had made, the Minister would make sure that he had a meeting with the AG in order to discuss specific matters of the DPME, NYDA and Stats SA.

He would recommend that the Committee should invite Stats SA so that it gave a full presentation of what it was doing and the challenges it faced, what it was doing not only in South Africa but across the world, as already indicated it was engaging with the African Union (AU) as well as the United Nations (UN), because what Stats SA was doing was very good.

The Chairperson thanked the Minister and his team for the presentation and responses. The questions that had not been responded to should be submitted in writing through the Committee Secretary.

DPSA 2014/15 Annual Report: Briefing

Mr Mashwahle Diphofa, Acting DG: DPSA said that the 93% achievement of its planned annual targets for the 2014/15 financial year had been a 16% improvement from previous year’s (2013/14) performance of 77%. The achievement for 2012/13 financial year had been 62%, while in 2011/12, it had been 47%. The DPSA had received an unqualified audit opinion for the 2014/15 financial year. No material misstatements had been identified in the Department’s Annual Financial Statement (AFS). On predetermined objectives, there had been no findings with respect to the usefulness and reliability of the reported performance information. No emphasis of matter had been received, although attention had been drawn to the fact that the Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) had been exempted from preparing separate financial statements. As a result, all CPSI transactions had been included in the financial statements of the DPSA. The human resource plan of the DPSA had not been reviewed, and this had been raised as a material non-compliance matter.

The DG said that looking at the overview of programme performance, in administration the Demand Management Plan had been submitted to National Treasury and implemented. The Annual Financial Statements had been submitted to National Treasury and the Auditor-General on 31 May 2014. The implementation of action plans to address the audit findings database had been updated and presented to the Audit Committee. The draft programme of action for 2015/16 on Outcome 12 had been developed and tabled for noting at the Governance and Administration (G&A) Cabinet Committee meeting held on 24 February 2015, at which one progress report for 2014/15 had been submitted. A rolling three-year strategic Internal Audit Plan for 2014/17 had been developed and submitted to the Audit Committee for approval.

A report on the implementation of the annual Internal Audit Plan for 2014/15 had been completed. A strategic risk register had been compiled and a monitoring report on risk management had been produced and submitted to the Risk Committee. Quarterly reports on legal advice and support had been submitted. The Department’s quarterly employee equity (EE) reports had been submitted to the Department of Labour. The Information Technology (IT) Governance Framework and Risk Management Plan had been developed and implemented. The IT Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) had been updated. The 2015/2020 Strategic Plan and 2015/16 Annual Operational Plan had been tabled in Parliament on 11 March 2015. The four quarterly reports had been submitted to National Treasury, the DPME and the Executive Authority by the required deadlines. The 2013/14 Annual Report had been submitted to the Accounting Officer and National Treasury, and tabled in Parliament in September 2014. The highlights of the Department as at the end of the term of the current administration had been profiled through a number of communication campaigns.

The DG said that in the area of human resource management and development, two reports on the median time to fill posts and the average funded vacancy rate had been submitted to the Minister for Public Service and Administration. The average vacancy rate at 31 December 2014 had been 14.16%. The median period to fill posts had been 5.02 months in respect of posts filled during the period 1 October 2014 to 31 December 2014, which was within the set target of six months. A report on the developments with regard to the provision of reasonable accommodation and assistive devices for public servants had been submitted. Support on the implementation of the sexual harassment policy had been provided to national and provincial departments and a report thereof had been submitted to the Director General.

In programme 3, Labour Relations and Remuneration Management, the DG said that the implementation of Resolution 1 of 2012 by departments had been monitored and reports submitted to the Minister for Public Service and Administration. Mandates had been sought and received from the Mandate Committee and proposals for the next rounds of salary negotiations had been tabled at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC). Reports on the implementation of the disciplinary code and procedure by national and provincial departments had been submitted to the Minister for Public Service and Administration. The implementation of the Charter had continued, with popularisation of the Charter and distribution of the Charter publication at the policy implementation support workshops. Further buy-in had been solicited from the provinces. A report on the implementation of the Charter had been submitted to the Ministry and the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration. The Government Employees Housing Scheme (GEHS) business case had been developed and submitted to the Minister for approval. A progress report on the implementation of the GEHS had been submitted to the Minister for noting. Draft two of the remuneration policy had been developed and consulted on with the PSCBC.

The DG said in terms of programme 4 -- Public Sector Information and Communication Technology -- that the analysis of bandwidth and uptime had been conducted on a quarterly basis in 56 Thusong centres, and the reports on the GEHS Government Employees Housing Scheme (GEHS) had been submitted to the Government Information Technology Office (GITO) Council and SITA. The ICT expenditure of government had been monitored and the Expenditure review report had been submitted. Mechanisms to keep Public Service ICT costs within or below retail levels had been identified. Advice had been provided to the Minister for Public Service and Administration on the move of the shareholding of SITA to the new portfolio. Advice had also been provided to SITA on the process and development of contracts for the re-establishment of the transversal terms contract(s); and to the Department of Water Affairs on a transversal contract sourcing strategy. A report had been submitted to the GITO Council and Minister on the advice provided. The monitoring report on the implementation of the governance of the ICT framework by national and provincial departments had been submitted to the Director General. Mechanisms to contribute towards the reduction of security risks had been identified and a report on the Public Service ICT security monitoring lapses, incidents, processes and good practices had been submitted to the GITO Council. The e-government strategy had been developed and submitted to the Director General. Five Chief Information Officer (CIO) meetings had been convened, resulting in the development of an action plan reflecting on the two different functions of the GITO Council, as per the Cabinet resolutions.

With regard to programme 5, Service Delivery and Organisational Transformation, the DG said that the geographic accessibility study for Thusong Service Centres in eight identified provinces had commenced and a report of the study had been submitted to the Minister for the Public Service and Administration. Advocacy workshops had been conducted with the nine provinces, and 73% of provincial departments had attended them. A total of 561 employees had been capacitated. Support had also been provided on an individual basis to 15 national and 11 provincial departments on the completion of the delegation registers. A compliance monitoring report on the implementation of the approved organisational structures of the selected clusters of Health and Social Development sector departments had been submitted to the Minister. The final job grading system had been consulted on and submitted to the Minister for approval. Sector advocacy workshops had been conducted with the Health, Education and Human Settlement departments, and a report had been submitted to the Director General for noting. The submission of quality Service Delivery Improvement Plans by national and provincial departments had been monitored and a report had been submitted to the Minister to approve tabling of the report in Cabinet. A report on the assessment conducted in the Health Sector service delivery sites had been submitted to the Director General and the heads of the assessed departments. Advocacy workshops on the implementation of the complaints and compliments framework had been conducted for the Maponya Thusong Centre, Mpumalanga province, Limpopo province, the National Department of Tourism and the Northern Cape province, and a report had been submitted to the Minister.

The DG said that with regard to programme 6, Governance and International Relations, the quarterly reports on the status of establishment and key indicators for each National and Provincial department had been produced and loaded on to the Vulindlela website. A research concept document and framework for the design of research instruments and tools had been developed. The management framework for the government’s one-stop shop had been completed. The development of the regulations for the Single Public Service (SPS) legislation had been facilitated. The Public Sector Integrity Framework implementation support had been provided to departments and a monitoring report on the implementation of the framework had been submitted to the Ministry. A report on the usage and effectiveness of the e-Disclosure system by national and provincial departments had been submitted to the Minister. Exchanges on bilateral and institutional relations, as well as established multilateral forums, had been coordinated and facilitated and the shared lessons had been documented. National and Provincial workshops had been conducted on the African Peer Review Mechanisms (APRM) Second Generation Country Review Methodology and process.

The DG said that the reason for the variance in programme 1 had been that during 2014/15 financial year, the DPSA had re-prioritised its savings in order to fund the procurement of office furniture for the new office accommodation, as the initial agreement with the Department of Public Works had been that the DPSA would move into a new building during 2014. The movement to the new office had been delayed by the contractors, however, and the new date was projected to be December 2015. This hads resulted in a saving of the funding that had been prioritised to fund the procurement of the office furniture. A rollover for this saving into the 2015/16 financial year had been requested. In programme 2, the spending had been within acceptable levels.

In programme 3, funding allocated for the user licence for the case management system project could not be utilised due to the project not being started. When the Public Service Remuneration Review Commission (PSRRC) had been established, it was anticipated that it would complete its work during the 2013/14 financial year. The period, however, had been extended to the 2014/15 financial year. Once again, the commission had experienced challenges, especially in appointing staff, and the work had therefore been delayed, resulting in the 2014/15 funding not being utilised in full. A request to rollover the saving had been sent to the National Treasury as the term of the Commission had now been extended to April 2017. A bid to appoint a service provider to conduct the review of the Policy and Procedure on Incapacity Leave and Ill-Health Retirement (PILIR) modality had been advertised twice during the 2014/15 financial year. The first bid had had to be cancelled because all the bids received did not meet the minimum criteria. The terms of reference had been reviewed and amended and the bid had been advertised again. Again the bids received had been non-responsive. Alternative ways of obtaining responsive bids had been considered and a decision had been taken to follow the route of a closed bid where respectable companies with the required experience would be approached to bid. These delays, however, had resulted in the funding for the project not being spent during the 2014/15 financial year. A request to rollover the saving had been sent to the National Treasury.

In programme 4, the reason for the variance was that the programme had under-spent its allocation due to payments not being made to the State Information Technology (SITA) in relation to the Batho Pele Gateway Call Centre and the connectivity of Thusong Service Centres, as service level agreements had not been in place. Further under-spending had resulted from the part sponsorship of the Government Chief Information Office (GCIO) summit costs and the cancellation of two workshops which had been planned to take place between February and March 2015. The Department, through the Director-General, had successfully negotiated exemption for re-establishing transversal tenders such as RT 570 and RT 285 with SITA, thus resulting in savings.

The spending in programme 5 had been within acceptable levels. The slight under-spending had resulted from delays that had been experienced in undertaking a study of the access to the Thusong Service Centres. Initially data quality issues and the verification and cleansing of spatially reference data had had to be addressed before the work could commence. The methodology had also had to be refined. As the work was now undertaken at a slower pace than initially anticipated, a six-month delay had been experienced, pushing the timeline out to August 2015. A rollover had been requested.

The spending in programme 6 had also been within acceptable levels, although there had been slight under-spending. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) had experienced a delay in the procurement of a service provider to conclude the APRM Second Generation Consolidated Close-Out Report, due to consultations on the nature of the service required. The appointment of a service provider to develop the Open Government Partnership's (OGP) communications and marketing strategy had been delayed, with no suitable provider being found during the initial bidding evaluation process. As a result, the bid had had to be re-advertised.

The DG said that the first quarter report had been verified by the Internal Audit and Risk Management Directorate, based on the assessment of evidence submitted by branches, and had been submitted by 30 July 2015 to the Minister, EXCO, National Treasury and the DPME. It had also been presented to the Portfolio Committee on 2 September 2015. Addressing quarterly targets that had not been achieved, he said branch heads were required to develop and implement action plans to address the non-performance. The implementation of these plans was being monitored monthly through the office of the Director General.

With regard to the first quarter targets that had not been achieved in programme 1, the report on the implementation of the human resources policies had been developed, but had not been submitted. The report had since been submitted in September 2015. The 1st quarter report had been submitted to EXCO in September 2015.

In programme 2, the DG said that they had compiled a draft research report and had consulted with the relevant stakeholder departments on emerging recommendations. The section of the research report that focused on the institutional arrangements and management of the coordinating structure had been completed. A task team had been appointed to develop the funding model, which had been the outstanding section to complete the report. The draft terms of reference for the appointment of the service provider to develop the funding model had been completed. The task team, comprising of representatives from National Treasury, the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), the Department of Public Works (DPW), the Department of Communications (DoC), Deloittes and the DPSA, had met on 29 July 2015 to discuss the scope of work and deliverables. Advocacy materials -- cases and the framework based on a pilot in two departments -- in order to undertake productivity measurements in the Health and Basic Education sectors, had been submitted to the Director General for approval. The Limpopo Department of Basic Education had been unable to submit the required datasets to finalise the writing of the case study, and had not responded to requests to release the datasets. However, the Mpumalanga Basic Education Department had been engaged to be a pilot for the study and on 28 July 2015, it had agreed to be the pilot, which would be completed by the end of 2nd quarter.

The DG said that in programme 3, where salary data from selected entities had been requested, the research had been conducted and recommendations on critical areas that the remuneration policy should address had been identified and the remuneration policy was in the process of being developed. Directives on the GEHS, a phased implementation plan and an outreach programme on GEHS had since been developed.

In programme 4, three E-enablement strategies propositions were being developed for endorsement by the DPSA, SITA, and the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), the draft guidelines for consultation had been developed.

In programme 5, engagements had been held with the Departments of Transport in KZN and Labour in the Eastern Cape over projects plans developed for implementation of operations management, but the projects plans had not been developed. The plans had since been developed. Batho Pele standards developed with three service delivery departments were being finalised. Tools (templates) for the successful implementation of the Batho Pele programme had been developed for consultation with the relevant stakeholders. The revision of the Batho Pele toolkits and information had commenced and would be completed by the end of the second quarter.

The DG said that in programme 6, the selected departments had been work-shopped as part of the research on administrative practices regarding operational delegations. Nominations have been from the four selected departments -- the DPSA, Rural Development and Land Reform, Energy and Justice. Once the draft guide on the clarification of roles and responsibilities of an administrative nature to implement operational policy was finalised, a workshop would be conducted with selected departments in the second quarter. A determination and guide on other remunerative work had been communicated to all government departments. An opinion on the legality of the determination had had to be sought and had been received later than expected, and had been published for public comment.

Discussion

The Chairperson said they had noted that the Minister and Deputy Minister of the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) had not been present in the meeting. However, that would not stop them as Members of the Committee from posing questions and interrogating the reports that had been presented by the DPSA and its entities. The questions from the Committee at the end of the meeting would be covered as recommendations. The DPSA should not necessary respond to the questions, because it was represented by one political head. She also proposed that whatever had been raised at this meeting, the Minister should respond and submit in writing to the Committee.

The Chairperson asked for clarity on the National School of Government (NSG), following their earlier engagement with the AG’s office, which had highlighted an issue of irregular procurement where the NSG did not have a system to monitor its contracts.

She asked why the DPSA was not compliant with the Information Technology (IT), and which dated back for the past four years, and it was also struggling to pay its service providers within 30 days, as prescribed by law. The Department should also explain the issue of HR plans which were not reviewed annually.

She sought clarity on the issue of the 20% unfilled senior management vacancies, which should be filled in the current financial year.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana said that the DPSA should be the card carrier for ethics, discipline, proper procedures and good governance. However, its planning was so bad in that the Minister, Deputy Minister and the DG, as principals of the Department, were not at the meeting. It was so bad that all the programmes of the Department had variances. If one looked at programme 1, because of poor planning the allocated money was failing to follow the needs. She was not sure whether the Minister, Deputy Minister and the DG understood the word “savings”. Savings came from an activity where the money had generated a profit. The Department had failed to generate a profit, but it was claiming a saving, which was a serious problem. They had done this in all their programmes -- and they expected a rollover of funds.

Ms Dlamini-Dubazana said that the department had claimed that in programme 2 its money had been spent acceptably. She did not know what they meant when they said “acceptably” when it came to money, because when they talked of money they used words such as “under-spending” or “over-spending,” but this was not acceptable.

In programme 3, there was a committee called the Public Service Remuneration Commission which had been appointed for a particular reason and given a particular mandate to operate within a specific term. However, they had now seen this Commission’s term being extended from time to time and when they had realised that somehow the Department was supposed to give the money to this Commission and make sure it was up and running, it was saying that the Committee must roll over funds. It would not do that so that the President was aware that the DPSA was failing to plan properly.

She asked why the Department had failed to pay service providers on time.

Ms A Lovemore (DA) asked for clarity with regard to some of the targets of the DPSA, which went back to the annual performance report, from which she had been unable to get a grasp of what the Department was doing. She asked where the information was, in terms of the content of the report, because they would have to talk too much about what the DPSA was supposed to have achieved.

She asked what the implications were of the incapacity leave by teachers, which in the Eastern Cape involved over 12 000 teachers, which had huge impact on the budget.

She asked what the current situation was with regard to SITA institutions that would be invited to bid. Had anything been done to cover the situation because in the meantime there were no managers in place?

Ms Lovemore said that in the DPSA report there had been talk of an advocacy programme on a standardised system, and 561 employees had been involved. She was not sure about the 78 departments that had been there. 561 employees seemed to be very few, because they were trying to implement a new standardised system across the entire public service. She asked on what statistical basis that 561 was a suitable achievement of the target, when the advocacy would start, and how deeply they had gone into the departments to try and get these new systems in place.

She asked if the Committee could have clear indicators on the entire public service, and asked how the DPSA identified its projects in terms of the CPFI.

She asked why no targets related to training had been achieved by the NSG, which was its core business. How did the failure to meettargets impact on the performance of the public service?

She wanted to know from the Public Service Commission (PSC) what the development state project was, and what resources they had been allocated, because so many of their targets had not been met, and why this was so important to the country. Why had the state of the PSC report and the PSC barometer been removed from the indicator?.

Mr Motau asked the DPSA to explain why what the department was giving them was not a fair reflection of the money it had spent.

Mr J McGluwa (DA) asked why NSG’s actual training numbers had dropped in the past two years from 45 000 to 38 000. 23 performance targets had been achieved and 22 not achieved, which was a concern for an entity that was under-performing, even when measured against the targets the entity had set for itself.

The chairperson said that they would not take any responses from the meeting, but would rather request the Minister to respond in writing to all the questions raised by Members of the Portfolio Committee by next week on Tuesday. However, some of the issues needed follow-up and therefore they needed to rearrange the agenda of the Committee and agree on the issues they wanted to prioritise. This exercise would also give them an opportunity to reflect on whether they were on the right track and departments were achieving the targets they had set for themselves.

The meeting was adjourned.