6.4 Human Resource Management 6.4.1 The DCS' inability to fill even its most critical vacancies remains a major cause for concern. This failure to attract and retain employees seriously impedes service delivery, and limits the DCS contribution to South Africa's economic growth. Furthermore, the high vacancy levels reported in financial and related areas can only have a negative impact on compliance with relevant legislative and good governance requirements and will make it virtually impossible to address internal control deficiencies. It is recommended that the DCS should redouble its efforts to fill all vacancies especially those in its finance department, and should explore all avenues to attract, develop and retain graduates in professional fields. 6.4.2 The Committee had for the past three years advocated that the DCS should explore alternative recruitment strategies to the ones they have been using with little meaningful success. That these ideas were only being explored three years later was unacceptable. With regard to its inability to recruit professionals the Committee is convinced that the DCS poor reputation as an employer, is a major contributing factor to its inability to attract professionals. The Committee concerned that given their performance over the past three years, the current management is unable to instill confidence in potential employees that the working environment created by the DCS management is conducive to their development.