1. AN UPDATE ON THE EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF HEADS OF DEPARTMENT IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration 07 March 2007 PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

2. 2 OUTLINE OF THE PRESENTATION BACKGROUND THE EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF HODs  Progress Made  Challenges Encountered  Analysis of reasons for non-compliance RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSION

3. 3 BACKGROUND Heads of Department (HoDs) shoulder the most crucial responsibility to ensure the achievement of service delivery objectives of their departments. They are effectively the administrative drivers of government’s programmes. It is therefore important to hold them accountable for the achievement of the objectives within their scope of responsibility. Performance management of HoDs provides a mechanism for promoting such accountability. Performance management helps to clarify responsibilities, priorities and performance expectations between the HoD and the supervising EA.

4. 4 BACKGROUND (continued) When done properly, performance management helps create a sound basis for administrative decisions (awarding of bonuses, managing performance, etc.). The PSC has since 2000 been involved in the facilitation of the evaluation of HoDs. In this process, the Commission has observed with concern the declining momentum in the implementation of performance management for HoDs. This Presentation provides an analysis of the progress and challenges of the performance evaluation of HoDs, and provides recommendations.

5. 5 THE EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF HODS The Framework for the Evaluation of (HoDs) was adopted by Cabinet in November 2000. In terms of the Framework, the responsibility to evaluate HoDs resides with the relevant EA. The EA must arrange for the evaluation to take place by appointing a panel that will assess the HoD and generate advice on her/his performance during a specific year. The EA also provides documents to be used for the evaluation, key of which are the annual report, the Performance Agreement (PA) of the HoD and the Verification Statement (VS) signed by both the HoD and the EA.

6. 6 THE EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF HODS (continued) The PSC plays the role of a facilitator in the evaluation process and issues annual guidelines to compliment the Framework on the Evaluation of HoDs. In addition, it also manages the process by providing Secretariat services to the Evaluation Panels. All Evaluation Panels are chaired by the PSC.

7. 7 PROGRESS MADE The first evaluation cycle in which the framework was implemented was in 2000/1. Ever since, the evaluation framework has been applied every year. Good progress was registered in the first two evaluation cycles. There was, however, a decline in the number of HoDs evaluated from the third evaluation cycle. For example, only 50% of qualifying HoDs were evaluated in the 2003/4 evaluation cycle compared to 80% in the 2001/2 evaluation cycle. Progress for the 2004/5 evaluation cycle has also been a cause for concern with only 59% of all qualifying HoDs evaluated by October 2006.

8. 8 PROGRESS MADE (continued) Table 1 below shows trends of the evaluation process Table 1: No. of HoDs evaluated since the implementation 2000/20012001/20022002/20032003/20042004/2005 National1223211213 Provinces2338313230 Totals3561524443

9. 9 PROGRESS MADE (continued) The PSC is very concerned about the increasing number of qualifying HoDs who are not evaluated. There is also a disturbing trend of departments whose HoDs have never been evaluated since the 2000/1 evaluation cycle even though they qualified (e.g. Health, Home Affairs, Public Works, Justice and Constitutional Development and Arts and Culture).

10. 10 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED The Role of Executing Authorities  Key among the procedural challenges is EAs who do not initiate the assessment of their HoDs.  The commitment of EAs is crucial in this system of performance evaluation, and the process cannot move without their participation.

11. 11 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) Filing of Performance Agreements  Cabinet approved in 2002 that PAs of HoDs must be filed with the PSC.  This process has also experienced serious challenges with many PAs being submitted long after they were due and in certain instances not submitted at all.  For example only 96 PAs were filed for 2005/06 instead of 126 that were expected. By 29/01/2007, 89 PAs had been received out of the 124 expected for 2006/07.  A PA is the basis for the evaluation and creates a common point of reference for the HoD and EA in the entire performance management cycle.

12. 12 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) Quality of Documents  The PSC has consistently raised concerns that the content of documents submitted for the evaluation process is not always of the quality desired.  The PAs submitted do not always meet all the requirements contained in the PMDS. This raises concerns about a possible lack of understanding of the regulatory requirements.  Challenges have also been experienced with the Verification Statements submitted. For example, sometimes these are submitted while not signed, and others do not reflect any ratings by either the HoD, EA or both.

13. 13 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) Quality of Documents (cont’d)  Even more worrying, some Verification Statements are not aligned to the HoD’s PA.  This may be symptomatic of a deeper problem of EAs and HoDs not sufficiently talking to each other when the verification statements are being prepared.

14. 14 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) Feedback to HoDs and the PSC  The cycle of performance management and development is not complete until the EA as supervisor provides the HoD with feedback from the evaluation process.  In the PSC’s experience, such feedback is not always provided.  There have been instances where HoDs have informally approached the PSC to enquire about the outcome of their evaluation, thus suggesting that the EA did not provide such feedback.  This compromises the potential of the PMDS to promote candid dialogue between the EA and HoD.

15. 15 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) The Role of Evaluation Panels  Panel members have played a critical role in the implementation of the Evaluation Framework.  While many of them have busy schedules, they have availed themselves and provided insightful input during evaluation meetings.  However, the PSC has noted with concern a few incidents where Evaluation Panels did not seem to play their role of critically reflecting on the HoDs performance in order to inform their advice to the EA.  The PSC is concerned that such incidents may compromise the integrity of the evaluation process should they develop into a trend.

16. 16 CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED (continued) Trends in Performance Ratings  Since the implementation of the framework in 2000/2001, ratings awarded to HoDs for their performance suggest that there is generally a high level of satisfaction with their performance.  The majority of HoDs have obtained ratings of 4 (performance significantly above expectations) and above (outstanding performance).  An important consideration is how such individual performance compares to the performance of the departments the HoDs are responsible for.

17. 17 ANALYSIS OF REASONS FOR NON- COMPLIANCE The PSC believes that one of the reasons for non- compliance is that Performance Evaluation is not always accorded high priority. There could also be poor administrative support in the offices of EAs and HoDs, and from HR components. Such support is particularly important for new EAs and HoDs who may not be familiar with the System and its requirements. There could also be fundamental differences between EAs and HoDs which are not mediated, thus leading to the late or non-signing of PAs.

18. 18 ANALYSIS OF REASONS FOR NON- COMPLIANCE (continued) However, the PSC has also not ruled out the possibility of non-compliance being as a result of HoDs who are poor performers simply delaying the evaluation process because it would not be in their interest. A key area requiring attention is the extent to which the ratings of HoDs take account of the overall performance of their departments. Through this, the ratings can then serve as a useful indicator of the quality of the country’s Public Service Leadership. In this regard, the PSC intends to pilot an organisational assessment framework during 2007.

19. 19 RECOMMENDATIONS EAs need to play their role as provided for in the Evaluation Framework. Performance Agreements should be entered into and filed with the PSC timeously. There is a need to standardize the management of the career incidents of HoDs. In this regard, Premiers who have not delegated this function to their MECs should put in place a mechanism to avoid delays in the evaluation process. Such a mechanism should be developed by DPSA and prescribed as a regulatory instrument.

20. 20 RECOMMENDATIONS (continued) The performance of departments should be taken into account when assessing the performance of HoDs. This can be achieved through a framework such as the one developed by the PSC for piloting in 2007. There is a need for a round table discussion with the Governance and Administration Cabinet Committee, and a representative group of MECs to further discuss the challenges facing the evaluation process and to explore practical measures for improvement.

21. 21 CONCLUSION The PSC will continue to monitor the process of evaluating HoDs and report on progress. It is hoped that the issues raised will be given the necessary attention in order to strengthen the evaluation of HoDs.

22. 22 Thank you