Thank
you very much, House Chair. The response to that question
... Due to the nature of the question, what we did was to divide the response into three. I will start with the first part which takes one section, namely how far is the Public Service from reflecting the stated intention of government to build a professional, meritocratic and reskilled Public Service?
The answer to that part is as follows. The Department of Public Service and Administration has a Human Resource Development Strategic Framework which is a blueprint for capacity-building and the development of public servants to enable them to competitively or competently undertake their responsibilities in line with the mandate and priorities of government. The intent of this framework is to build an efficient, effective, professional and developmentally-orientated Public Service through the establishment of policies, structures and operational processes for capable and high- performing employees.
As part of continuous improvement in implementing the framework, there has been a review to align ... So the strategy has been reviewed to align it to the visions of government's macro-developmental policies, namely the National Qualifications Framework Act ... 2008, the New Growth Path 2010, the National Development ... 2011 and the national Human Resource Development Strategy for South Africa ... towards 2030. These are all the key policies that have been developed over time and according to which human resource development has been reviewed.
Finally, an in-depth evaluation report of the implementation of human resource development in the Public Service between 2009 and 2014 ... that in the evaluation is available.
The second part of the question deals with organisational culture, ethics and the Public Service. Our response to that section is as follows. The Public Service Regulations 2016 brought about the following reforms as far as ethics and integrity management is concerned. There are quite a host of those. One, employees are prohibited from conducting business with organs of state;
two, employees are prohibited from accepting bribes and gratifications, and the context under which gifts can be accepted is clearly stated; three, employees are required to report unethical conduct, corruption and noncompliance to the Public Service Act 1994 and the Public Service Regulations 2016; four, the performance of other remunerative work was standardised; five, ethics infrastructure was introduced to specific anticorruption management functions, allocated to the head of department, HOD, including whistle-blowing; and six, from April 2014 all senior management service, SMS, members were required to disclose their financial interests, but with the extension of categories ... after April 2018 disclosures were required from middle management service, MMS, members, professionals on occupational specific dispensation, OSD, salary levels 11 and 12, supply chain management personnel, finance personnel, the ethics office and Public Service Commission, PSC, officials working in financial disclosures.
Therefore, there has been an extension to other categories below SMS level. An intention is to extend disclosures to all employees in the Public Service. An
electronic system, eDisclosure, was introduced in August 2016 to improve on compliance with financial disclosure regulations. All designated employees are required to use the eDisclosure system to submit their financial disclosure forms.