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The  Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration adopted the budget reports that were presented to it by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) and their entities: the National School of Government (NSG), Public Service Commission (PSC) and Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
 
The committee heard that the DPSA’s budget will focus on, among other things, fighting corruption, strengthening human resource practices and management and monitoring and evaluating service delivery performance in the public service.
 
The committee noted the progress made thus far by the Board of Trustees in developing arguments in favour or opposing the merger of Brand South Africa with Tourism South Africa. The committee further noted that the matter was before the Cabinet for its decision on the fate of the institution.
 
The committee expressed its optimism that the Ministers of the DPME and tourism together with Cabinet members will arrive at a progressive conclusion on the merger of Tourism SA and Brand SA, a conclusion that will lead to the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the two institutions.
 
The committee noted that the DPME developed a monitoring and evaluation tool for the measurement of the piloted District Development Model to determine the efficacy of the model with the aim of improving coherence and coordination across all three spheres of government.
 
The DPME together with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs must provide a comprehensive report on the piloted District Development Programme to see whether or not the model will make an impact on service delivery.
The committee in its analysis of the annual performance plan of the PSC identified an anomaly regarding the PSC’s spending of 75 % of its allocated budget on compensation of employees.
 
PSC is a knowledge-based institution that attracts highly specialised individuals with relatively scarce skills to assist the institution to pursue its mandate of investigation, monitoring and evaluation as well as research. The committee told the DPSA that the core mandate of the PSC must not suffer as a result of its limited resources.
 
The committee noted that the DPSA has developed guidelines for lifestyle audits in the public service in March 2021. It expressed its unhappiness with the progress made thus far due to the lack of uniformity in the implementation of the guidelines among government departments.
 
The department launched the Public Administration Ethics, Integrity and Disciplinary Technical Assistance Unit which was established to improve ethical and anticorruption policy, strengthen ethical infrastructure, discipline management and synchronise all three levels of public administration.
 
The committee was concerned about the impact of the new unit in tackling corruption and improving discipline management in the public administration. There is a debate around its independence and whether it is well placed within the DPSA or must be located in the PSC although it was established through the Public Administration Management Act.  
 
The committee welcomed the process on wage negotiations for the 2022/23 financial year which is hoped to be concluded before the end of June 2022. Furthermore, the committee has noted that the DPSA plans to revise the Human Resource Management and Development Strategy which was last revised in 2002.
 
Regarding the disability employment target, the committee was satisfied with the strides the department has made on the employment of persons living with disabilities. However, with regard to the employment of women in senior management positions, the committee notes that the department is lagging behind.

The committee has ensured that the NSG’s plan and budget allocation serve the needs and aspirations of the public servants. It recommended that the NSG should develop a fully-fledged funding model to maintain the self-generated income through the Training Trading Account.  
 
The committee noted that Stats SA has received an additional allocation over the MTEF period to fill critical posts that have been vacant since October 2016. It said Stats SA should expeditiously finalise and table the amendment of the Statistics Act (1999) in Parliament to drive statistical reform in the country timeously. The amendments of the Act should respond to the evolving environment.  
 
The committee recommended that Stats SA should move with speed in conducting the Income and Expenditure Survey which was last conducted in 2015. It also recommended that Stats SA should leverage the use of technology such as Computer Assistive Personal Interviews and Computer Assistive Telephonic Interviews.  
 
The committee commends Stats SA on the collection of data for census 2022 thus far and calls on South Africans who have not yet participated in census to ensure that they are counted as census results determine the budget allocations for service delivery.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Services and Administration, Tyotyo James