Transcript Document

Contemporary M&E Developments
Developments in Oversight Institutions
19 September 2013
Commissioner Paul Helepi
Public Service Commission South
Africa
Introduction
• We live in a dynamic world and there are many
developments in institutions such as the PSC. I
can, therefore not cover all developments.
• In this presentation I highlight three:
– Increasing the use of our evaluations or the
impact of the work of the PSC
– Responding to the specific needs of
Parliament
– The specific foci of the work of the PSC
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Mandate and Independence of the PSC
• The PSC has a mandate to monitor and evaluate public
administration.
• The standard against which public administration is
evaluated is the nine values in section 195 of the
Constitution.
• This gives the PSC a very wide mandate to evaluate and
advise on a range of public administration issues, from
ethical administration, effectiveness, equity and
accountability, to representivity.
• The PSC does this independent from government.
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Mandate and Independence of the PSC
• The Kader Asmal report on Institutions Supporting
Democracy defined independence as “(avoidance of)
direct and indirect interference with the programme and
decisions of the PSC and not about the participation of
the PSC in government activities”.
• The PSC should, therefore, be an activist commission,
that is one that actively pursues certain outcomes in
public administration.
• The PSC provides Parliament with the information and
technical analyses to strengthen Parliament’s oversight
role, about which Hon. Sogoni, Chairperson of the
Appropriations Portfolio Committee, will tell you more
later.
• The PSC advises any organ of state.
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Work of the PSC
• In responding to its mandate the PSC has undertaken a
variety of evaluations, including –
– Evaluations of the integrity system
– HR good practice evaluations
– Programme evaluations
– Institutional Assessments, using a specific M&E Tool
developed by the PSC
– Evaluation of the state of the public service against
the nine values
– Citizen focused evaluations
– Evaluations of service delivery and service delivery
models
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What are the main challenges faced by the
PSC and what are the gaps that it must
address?
• Increasing the use of our evaluations or
the impact of the work of the PSC
• Responding to the specific needs of
Parliament
• The specific foci of the work of the PSC (or
the PSC’s niche areas)
Increasing the use of our evaluations or the
impact of the work of the PSC
• An evaluation of the work of the PSC and the Kader
Asmal report on Institutions Supporting Democracy has
found that the PSC produces a lot of good reports but
that the impact of these reports, to effect real change in
public administration, has been limited.
• The PSC is, therefore, undertaking a re-engineering of
all its products and processes.
• To improve impact, the PSC has realised that the weight
of emphasis should shift from evaluation to the
recommendations that the PSC makes or the advice
it is giving.
Increasing the use of our evaluations or the
impact of the work of the PSC
• As much attention, regarding both methodology and
effort, should be given to developing solutions to
problems pointed out by an evaluation as to the initial
evaluation.
• Solutions need to be developmental and not just
enforcing compliance with existing prescripts.
• Compliance is the hygiene on which good administration
is built but the appropriateness of the regulatory
framework must also be considered.
• A diagnosis of some of these “framework conditions” is
provided by the National Development Plan.
Increasing the use of our evaluations or the
impact of the work of the PSC
• Moving from evaluation to solutions places a huge demand
on the skills-base of the PSC, to develop solutions relating to
a variety of administrative practices, from planning,
performance management, professionalising the public
service, HR practices and accountability frameworks.
• In fact, it is many times not about evaluation, but about
solving practical problems. A variety of analytical and
innovation methodologies are needed for this.
• It also places demands on how the PSC engages with
departments because solutions need to be developed in
cooperation with line and central departments. The
rigorousness of the work should convince departments of the
workability and cost-effectiveness of the solution offered.
Increasing the use of our evaluations or the
impact of the work of the PSC
• Where this is appropriate the PSC is also taking steps to
enforce its recommendations. Legislative amendments
are being introduced that will allow the PSC to issue
enforceable directions with regard to all nine values in
Section 195 of the Constitution.
21 July 2015
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Responding to the specific needs of
Parliament
• Parliament decided in 2011 that:
(i) The PSC should report on the implementation of Section
195(1) of the Constitution by the administration of all spheres of
government, organs of state and public enterprises in South
Africa every year.
(ii) The report of the PSC should be contained in the annual report
of the entity that the PSC is reporting on every year. This will
allow users of the PSC reports to match the governance of their
administration with the performance of the administration for
the same period of time. Over time, the style of reporting will
allow greater comparability, monitoring, evaluation and
oversight of the progress made by any particular government
entity makes in implementing Section 195(1) of the
Constitution.
Responding to the specific needs of
Parliament
• This places a huge demand on the PSC to comprehensively define
and clarify its standards with regard to each of the values, refine its
indicators and collect data that can convincingly show the progress
of all entities in public administration with regard to their
conformance to the values.
• In its promotion of the values the PSC will also have to indicate the
direction of change in public administration for it to increasingly
reflect the ideals represented by the values.
• This will require the PSC to become a centre of excellence with
regard to administrative practices under each of the values.
• It will also have to house the data that forms the basis of its
evaluations.
21 July 2015
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The specific focus of the work of the PSC
• The National Development Plan envisages a capable and
developmental state.
• The nature and character of DS institutions is one of its main
defining attributes. It is these that determine its capacity to formulate
and implement its development agenda in a coherent and binding
fashion. As we all know, an institutional architecture that provides
incentives for citizens, organisations (both public and private) to
realise their capacities has accounted for developmental success. In
contrast, institutions that create disincentives for citizens and
organisations have resulted in developmental failure.
• Another key feature of the developmental state is its organisational
and technical capacity, specifically its human resource capacity.
The way public servants are recruited into the public service and
how their careers develop, is therefore specifically important.
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Proposals from the NDP
• The NDP contains many proposals about the
administrative system interspersed through all the
chapters.
• The implementation of most of these is not well thought
through yet, or will require considerable change in the
administrative system and culture implementation in
government.
• If the PSC is to play a developmental role in public
administration, it should take up some of the proposals
and develop real solutions that take account of the
various contexts of the different departments, and that
will complement/ strengthen the NDP.
Proposals of the NDP
A selection of such proposals are the following:
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Make the public service and local government careers of choice
Professionalise the public service
Improve interdepartmental coordination.
Strengthen delegation, accountability and oversight.
Ensure procurement systems deliver value for money.
Mainstreaming citizen participation.
Complement traditional hierarchical accountability with a bottom-up
approach where citizens hold public officials accountable for the
level of service delivery.
• Improving performance management
• Improving incentives
The specific focus of the work of the PSC
• The PSC will therefore increasingly focus attention on
the evaluation of such administrative determinants of
performance, rather than, for instance, policy or
programme design, which are many times the main
focus of evaluation.
• To undertake such evaluations will require unique
methodologies, because the causal path from
administrative practice to performance is complex.
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Conclusion
• It is a huge challenge for a small organisation like the
PSC, outside the hustle and bustle of day-to-day public
administration, to make a significant impact. Indeed, this
applies to any of the central institutions like the DPSA,
Treasury or the DPME.
• Our challenge is indeed the same as yours, to make
evaluation meaningful and promote the use and results
thereof.
• I hope the few changes that we are introducing in the
PSC, have aroused your interest.
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PSC Website: www.psc.gov.za
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National Anti-Corruption Hotline for the Public Service: 0800 701 701
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