The Department of Public Service and Administration has published the National Framework Towards the Professionalisation of the Public Service, which outlines the government’s intended move away from cadre deployment and putting a greater focus on merit and potential.
Presenting the framework last week, acting Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Thulas Nxesi said that the framework aims to not only tighten pre-entry requirements as well as effective recruitment and selection processes that inform meritocratic appointments across all levels of government but will also push for further learning and skills development in the public sector.
According to Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso: “This is music to my ears.”
“Business feels the sharp edge of the poor state of public services. There are far too many stories of factories and companies having to cease operations or even close permanently because of basic failures in local government service delivery, on top of the obvious consequences for the lives of our people,” she said.
“A core strategic goal of BLSA is to support the government to improve the quality of the civil service, so I applaud the effort involved in getting the framework to this point. We now all need to support its implementation.”
Mavuso said that the document is frank in acknowledging how cadre deployment has damaged the civil service, noting that “at the executive management levels, reporting and recruitment structures have allowed too much political interference in selecting and managing senior staff”.
The result has been turbulence in senior positions and weak morale, as well as damage to citizens’ confidence in the state.
Instead, it says, “a professional public service is one where people are recruited and promoted based on merit and potential, rather than connections or political allegiance.” It bluntly says deployment practices “ought to be ditched”.
“The Framework is also clear about focusing on outputs: high-quality public services for citizens. It notes a current trend in the public service where professionalism is conceived of as merely delivering clean audits, but that ‘the clean audit is a means to an end, not an end in itself’. Again, I applaud the intentions here,” Mavuso said.
The document makes some clear recommendations, such as:
- Appointing an administrative head of the public service to whom all directors-general would report to on operational and administrative matters while reporting to ministers on policy matters;
- Several proposed policy directives, including ditching cadre deployment in favour of merit-based systems and extending all contracts of directors general and heads of department to ensure stability, with renewal only after a thorough performance review;
- It proposes legislative amendments to all the key Acts that govern the civil service, with amendment bills shortly to be introduced;
- New consequence management frameworks;
- Mentorship schemes to enable distinguished former public servants to transfer skills;
- Lots of training schemes and entry criteria, including exams.
However, even with good intentions, the BLSA CEO said the framework comes with a major caveat – implementation.
“The quality of our public service is one of the greatest challenges we face in repairing the damage of state capture and wider political interference in public service delivery.
“While we can work on stop-gap measures to support the government when we face particular crises and urgent obstacles, it is only once we have a full and capable state in place that we can expect high standards of service delivery and genuine democratic accountability,” Mavuso said.
“I look forward to working with the government to support implementation of the Framework. Businesses’ interests are clearly aligned with the vision it sets out.”
Read: Free flights and new beds for government officials and their families – all paid for by you
