Report of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration
on the Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management 10th
Anniversary Biennial Conference, dated 10 March 2005:
1.
INTRODUCTION
The
Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration was invited to
participate in the 10th Anniversary Biennial Conference of the Commonwealth
Association of Public Administration and Management (CAPAM), held in
The
Committee accepted the invitation, and sent a delegation comprising of Messrs M
R Baloyi (leading the delegation), N E Gcwabaza and R S Ntuli, accompanied by
Ms N Gwaza, Committee Secretary.
The
Conference took place under the theme; “Networked Government”, and focused on
three sub-themes, namely:
·
Many
agencies, one Government,
which concentrated on Public Service as a learning organization,
un-bureaucratic bureaucracy and citizen-centric service delivery;
·
Engaging
Citizens, which
concentrated on building capacity for enhanced engagement, building
partnerships with stakeholders and engagement through e-Government; and
·
Networking
beyond borders, which
concentrated on partnering with international organizations, equipping officers
for the international dimension and serving a globalised citizenry.
2.
THE
CONFRENCE IN PERSPECTIVE
The
Conference was preceded by a workshop organized for the purpose of allowing
participants to share their views on the results of a survey that CAPAM
conducted with a view to determine as to why Governments embark on new
organisational and service delivery arrangements, and to use such an engagement
in shaping the discussions in the Conference itself.
The
Workshop considered the survey results conducted through engaging experts from
The
results indicated that public servants are the key change drivers in dealing
with organizational change and service delivery arrangements, followed by
politicians and then international development agencies. Noting the engagement
in this survey report, the Workshop concluded that whereas there is diversity
as to which agent directly dictates the course and speed of events in
organizational change and the introduction of new service delivery mechanisms,
country specifics point to the reality that those changes are the common
features of governance. It also emerged in the survey report that all countries
that are undergoing changes are faced with unique challenges, they have to
increase capacity to deal with such challenges and, in order to do so, it is
imperative that they get the best and relevant mix of tools, research and
activities to get the best products out of the change processes, and it is in
this regard that networking becomes critically important for all the Governments
of the World, first at home and in the international community.
Noting
the CAPAM survey results that international and country experts agree that
factors leading to organisational change depend on individual country
circumstances, and applying that observation to our situation in
·
Building
on the political will that has been demonstrated through policy formulation in
the Public Service arena;
·
Accelerating
the strategic deployment of public servants;
·
Isolate
and deal with cases of resistance to change;
·
Accelerate
engagement with the academic community;
·
Dealing
with consultancy domination;
·
Building
change management capacity;
·
Improving
horizontal communication among state organs;
·
Accelerating
vertical communication between the Government and the people;
·
Intensify
the fight against corruption;
·
Managing
resource constraints.
In
exploring the conference theme, answers to the following questions were sought:
·
How
can Government be organized with different agencies and yet remain as a
connected network as delivering integrated, customer-centric services?
·
What
values, structures, systems, processes and tools are required to encourage
networking, collaboration and sharing knowledge across agencies?
·
What
are the competencies and values Public offices should have, and should these be
honoured to build a shared understanding and purpose?
In
an attempt to get to the bottom of providing answers to the questions that the
theme of the Conference introduced, the conference engaged in a mode of
experience sharing guided by the sub-themes of the Conference, in which case
they show-cased their respective experience, practices, policies and challenges
that each country is confronted with. During this interaction, organs of civil
society from various Governments were also sharing their experience. What
spiced the whole interaction was the fact that Conference got divided into
small groups and toured
To
acknowledge that the Public Service is, of necessity, a learning organization
results from, among other things the following:
·
The
Public Service’s ability to actively participate in a globalised environment,
·
The
state of the Public Service’s advancement
in ICT developments as a key communication mechanism,
·
Visionary
change,
·
The
need for the Public Service to be responsive to the needs/demands of the civil
society,
·
The
development and deployment of managers who are visionaries.
The
observations that we make in this regard of our Public Service as a learning
organization is that we need to examine the role that institutions such as
SAMDI are playing in making training and development interventions for the
learning advancement of our Public Service.
Through
debates on the engagement of civil society on matters of governance, policy
formulation and service delivery, a number of things are emerging, namely:
·
Not
only are Governments taking the initiative to engage citizens and various
stakeholders, but citizens themselves are increasingly demanding participation,
·
Various
forms of engaging the citizens are being utilised to promote and ensure
effective engagement with civil society,
·
Democracy
is not just about the citizens exercising their rights to vote a Government
into power, but it is also about involving them
in decision-making, in generating new ideas in matters of governance,
policy development, service delivery and in budgetary processes. It is about
empowering the citizens to tell public servants where they are succeeding and
where they are failing to deliver.
Our
country’s participation in features of engaging citizens such as the
“izimbizo’s”, the citizens forums, the use of Public Information Terminals, the
Multi-Purpose Community Centres, door-to-door visits and community mass
meetings serve to give meaning to the people governance concept, and
practically position us in such a manner as to proclaim our compliance with the
requirement of citizen engagement.
Given
the reality of globalization, it is possible for governments to form
partnerships with organizations beyond their borders for purposes of sharing
knowledge, networking and providing peer remedial solutions to problems and
challenges.
3.
CONCLUSION
Whereas
it often emerged that Governments engaged in self-praise and competitive
attitudes rather than experience-sharing, perhaps natural in intergovernmental
relations, a lot could be learnt from the interaction.
It
is a strong recommendation that we, as Parliament or as a Portfolio Committee
or both, should constantly participate in the activities of CAPAM and in fact
register as members. Individual MP’s may also register for membership.
Report to be
considered.