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This presentation provides an overview of the support intervention in the Department of Home Affairs, focusing on areas such as leadership, human resources, information technology management, and service delivery improvement. The aim is to address the challenges faced by the Department and drive meaningful change.
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Presentation on the Support Intervention in the Department of Home Affairs 23 August 2006 Presenter: Odette Ramsingh DG: Office of the Public Service Commission
Presentation Overview • Background to the Support Intervention in Home Affairs • Focus areas of the Home Affairs support intervention • Leadership and management • Human Resources • Information Technology Management • Service Delivery Improvement • Programme management • Financial management and internal controls • Concluding remarks
The Minister of Home Affairs indicated in her budget vote speech on 30 May 2006 that she is enlisting the support of the Department of Public Service and Administration and the intervention of National Treasury in terms of section 6(2)(d) and (2)(e) of the Public Finance Management Act. Furthermore, the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee on 31 May 2006 discussed the disclaimer opinion of the Auditor-General, the annual report for 2004/5 and the strategic plan for 2006/7. The Portfolio Committee raised a range of issues and made specific rulings that require immediate action. Hence the need for a support intervention that will meet the request and address the issues raised by the Minister and the Portfolio Committee. Background to Support Intervention
Background to support intervention (cont.) • Support has been provided to the Department since July 2006 through the services of the Accountant-General and through a combined team from the Office of the Public Service Commission (OPSC) and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) that is led by the Director-General: OPSC. • The National Treasury and the Office of the Accountant-General focusing on the review of financial management and internal controls, while the combined OPSC and DPSA team is providing support over a period of six months on key workstreams. • The DG:OPSC has not been seconded on a full-time basis, but is available on a co-management basis for the first 3 months.
The DG: OPSC and DG: Home Affairs report to the Minister of Home Affairs. A steering committee consisting of the Directors-General of the National Treasury, DPSA, Home Affairs and the Accountant-General has been implemented. The DG:OPSC chairs the committee. Background to support intervention (cont.)
Leadership and management • Objective To establish a stronger and more cohesive management team. • Observations • Need for a more hands on and transformational leadership approach in the Department. • Top management team needs to accept collective responsibility for dealing with the challenges facing the Department and not abdicate responsibility. • Managers have not yet recognised that they need a “business unusual” approach to evolve at a quick pace due to local and international needs, as is evident in the sense of comfort and inertia at management level. • There is no sense of urgency and lack of adherence to deadlines.
Inadequate management capability exists in the Department to drive and sustain change resulting in key projects left hanging, for instance, the transformation of civic services. Gaps were identified in the 2006/7 Business Plan (it lacked service delivery objectives, deliverables and clear time frames). There was no direct relation between the Strategic and Business Plan and the Estimates of Expenditure. There is a general crisis response to problems due to a lack of adequate management plans (the crisis pertaining to backlogs in the processing of permits). Leadership and management (cont.)
The current organisational structure does not enable the Department to deliver on its core responsibilities and to address its needs. There is a need to review the structure to improve horizontal and vertical lines of reporting and accountability and toreengineer and integrate the business processes of the Department. The business processes require a fundamental rethinking and radical IT-enabled approach to redesign the way in which things are done at Home Affairs with a view to achieving dramatic improvements in critical areas of performance such as service, quality, speed and cost efficiency and to ensure organisational culture change. At the time time of commencement of the support intervention, senior managers had not yet signed performance agreements for 2006/7. This reflects a lack of a accountability and performance culture. Leadership and management (cont.)
Outputs/deliverables The 2006/07 Business Plan has been reviewed to make outputs, activities and target dates more concrete and dates were verified with each business unit. Key dependencies were identified and taken into account, for instance, outcomes were linked to budgets and resource requirements. For the next financial year planning will have to start in September 2006 to ensure tightening of the strategic objectives and to develop a stronger business plan for 2007/2008. Performance Agreements of SMS members for the 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05 financial years are being reviewed and a report with recommendations will be ready by the end of August 2006. Compliance with the Financial Disclosure Framework for SMS members for the 2005/2006 financial year is being enforced. Leadership and management(cont.)
Leadership and management (cont.) • Review of appointments of SMS members during the period 2004-2006 is being undertaken. Preliminary findings point to- • A general failure on the part of the Department to conduct job evaluations prior to recruitment and selection. • Some SMS posts were filled without such posts being advertised. • Head-hunting of candidates was in some instances not conducted in conjunction with the normal advertising of vacancies as determined in the SMS Handbook. • Some SMS members were appointed without compliance with the advertised requirements, such as educational qualification requirements. • SMS competency assessments will be carried out in respect of the current management team. New SMS appointments will be subject to competency assessment.
The interface between HO and provincial & local offices is being assessed. Preliminary findings indicate the following: The difficulty of managers in the provinces and head office to conceptualise the role of management structures and the business model of the Department, for instance, the role of the Provincial Managers Forum. Lack of an “eagle vision” of head office to provide strategic leadership to provincial managers, as evident in the quarterly reviews that were conducted on 1-2 August 2006. The Service Delivery Branch is inadequately serving as a nodal point in the Department for overseeing, co-ordinating and championing service delivery in the provinces. Due to a lack of formally established nodal points in the head office of the Department, provinces are currently having to rely on “informal contacts” in the head office to obtain responses to their queries (e.g. progress regarding the processing of applications by clients for documents). Leadership and management (cont.)
General lack of communication between the Corporate Services Branch and the provinces, and confusion about their roles in the filling of posts. Lack of uniform service delivery standards that are required to provide the same levels of service at Home Affairs offices and service points across the county. Critical posts in provinces identified. A list of posts has been compiled. In order to fill such posts, it will be determined whether they are funded and have been job evaluated. An analysis on spending and claims for international travel for the 2005/06 financial year has commenced. Leadership and management (cont.)
Leadership and management (cont.) • SMS Performance Agreements (PAs) for the period 2006/07 developed and reviewed. • PAs did not meet the minimum requirements set by the DPSA, for instance, the inclusion of Batho Pele principles. • Some managers had difficulty distinguishing between their Key Result Areas and generic managerial and leadership responsibilities, which suggests that they do not understand their core responsibilities. • The quality of the performance agreements created an impression of either a lack of commitment towards the aim of the performance management system or a lack of understanding of the system.
Human Resources • Objective To provide focused support regarding key HR matters. • Observations • There is a lack of a strategic, integrated approach and no cogent HR plan exists to drive the strategic Human Resource Management and Development thrust needed to turn around service delivery within HA. • Core HR functions are farmed out in other sections of the department e.g. job evaluation and job design are located in Strategic Executive Support Services, which creates serious non-compliance and accountability risks. • The current dispute on the Immigration Officers is a case in point of poor co-ordination and policy direction given by Corporate Services which has serious financial implications for HA. • Various steps in the HR recruitment and selection process are currently being neglected which is leading to delays in filling posts (e.g. job evaluations).
The performance of the Department is dependent on the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process. The Corporate Services Branch is failing to ensure that regulatory requirements are met, for instance, performance reviews and annual assessments. The Corporate Services Branch is not providing the necessary guidance on human resources practices (performance management, financial disclosures, etc.) The Corporate Services Branch must promote a more common understanding about what is required in the Department in terms of people, finance and customer management. The location of Legal Services in the Corporate Services Branch results in the DDG: Corporate Services playing a caretaker/conduit role for the function rather than providing the necessary strategic oversight. Human Resources (cont.)
Human Resources (cont.) • Outputs/deliverables • The recruitment and selection policy, process and practices are being reviewed. • Critical vacant posts at SMS level identified and the filling of such vacancies will be fast-tracked. • A review will be undertaken to assess the capacity of the Department to absorb a large number of new appointments. • Internal training on Batho Pele and Code of Conduct will be provided by SAMDI and is being included in the SMS training strategy. • A sick leave trends analysis is being conducted and a report with recommendations will be ready by the end of August 2006. • Job evaluation of jobs of immigration officers on salary levels 1–12 has been conducted and verified. A migration plan for these officers is being developed. • Review of occupational categories will commence with a particular focus on civic services.
Information Technology Management • Objective To provide support in IT management matters. • Observations • A question arises as to whether the Information Services Branch understands that ICT is one of the key enablers for organisational improvement and process innovation within the Department. For instance, there is no tangible plan on how any set of logically-related tasks of integrated and co-ordinated activities performed between Branches to achieve a defined business outcome, will be phased in over the short-term to long-term. • Projects are hard to track due to no milestone reporting, and final dates are being shifted. • There seems to be an over emphasis on financial reviews and reports in comparison to IS issues in terms of detailed tracking.
The methodical process on how ICT is going to be used for the radical overhaul of business processes in line with the major objectives of Home Affairs is very fuzzy and unclear. An alignment and linkage between the operating processes and organisational structure, focused on the organisation’s core competencies to achieve improvement in the Department’s organisational performance, is lacking. There is an urgent need to review current operating procedures and to implement interim manual and software solutions that will generate immediate improvements, while longer term process redesign and systems development projects are underway. Information Technology Management (cont.)
The organisational impact of IT projects needs to be automational, informational, sequential, analytical, geographical, integrative and intelligent. IT projects have to reshape and facilitate the quick flow of information between globally-distributed processes and ensure the availability of instantaneous and consistent information across government networks. There is a sense of inertia in Branches that lack IT capacity and are waiting for IT solutions to be implemented by the IS Branch. Heads of Branches need to champion change processes in their units and not expect the Information Services Branch to do so on their behalf. Information Technology Management (cont.)
Information Technology Management (cont.) • Outputs/deliverables • Time frames and Business Plans for IT solutions are being assessed for clarity and recommendations will be made (need to illustrate the planned ICT projects versus actual delivery schedule). • An assessment of the ICT management capacity is being conducted by reviewing the role of the internal Information Services Management Board. • An investigation of the organisational structure and institutional arrangements between branches to support an IT-enabled environment is underway. • Governance arrangements and prioritisation of IT projects within the Department will be appraised to align them with the objectives of HA.
Service Delivery Improvement • Objective To strengthen service delivery improvement initiatives. • Observations • Generally there is a lack of a co-ordinated framework for standard operating procedures from HO (or the procedures are out of date or customised per individual province on an ad hoc basis). • No cogent management plan exists to deal with the processing of service delivery backlogs or systems transition. • The Service Delivery Branch was abolished during the structural review process of the Department in March 2006 without any clear conceptualisation of the role of the Chief Operating Officer. Ideally, in terms of organisational design principles, the COO should be overseeing service delivery operations throughout the system with special emphasis on managing the interface between provinces and the Head Office.
Civic Services forms the core business of the services that are to be delivered by the Department in terms of its legal mandate, yet very little or no attention has been given to the transformation and overhaul of the business processes of this function. Civic Services functions are by and large, centralized at head office with no clear delivery loop or business process to provincial offices, hence no real accountability by head office as to the follow through from queries and requests from provincial offices. The National Immigration Branch needs to develop a comprehensive programme for implementing the Immigration Act. It must take into account the business processes, procedures, resources, structures and systems that will be required to implement the Act in a systematic and well-coordinated manner and to avoid unintended consequences and unfunded mandates. Service Delivery Improvement(cont.)
Service Delivery Improvement (cont.) • Outputs/deliverables • Recommendations on the realignment of the organisational structure to ensure a strategic fit able to deliver on its mandate and objectives were made. • The development of an Institutional Development and Support Matrixed Delivery Model for management reporting between head office and provincial offices is underway. • A job design, job purpose and management reporting line for the Chief Operations Officer in managing the head office/ provincial interface of line managers within provinces and functional specialists within head office has been recommended.
A provincial delegation framework will be developed. There is focused attention on the processing of applications for Intra-company Transfer permits and Permanent Residence permits. Backlogs are being addressed through the provision of additional staff and regular monitoring. The re-occurrence of backlogs will be prevented through the development of an appropriate strategy and procedures manual. Visitations to Provinces and service delivery points are undertaken to understand the challenges adversely affecting the experience of the citizens. Service Delivery Improvement(cont.)
Programme Management • Objective To ensure effective programme integration and stricter monitoring of projects. • Observations • As a highly regulatory department, it is surprising that HA does not have a dedicated Monitoring and Evaluation function to oversee compliance and ensure the integrity of the face value documents issued. • There is a need for an integrated monitoring and reporting tool to measure organisational performance to avoid decision-making being based on anecdotal evidence. • The tracking of organisational performance was inadequate as evident at the Department’s most recent quarterly review in August. • Currently project management functions are haphazardly located in various units, with no clear sense of how projects will be aligned and integrated across the different branches.
Outputs/deliverables The Strategic Planning Framework from Treasury will be institutionalised in the Department. Progress with the implementation of the strategic plan and the cascading of the hierarchy of planning for each performer level to individual work-plans will be assessed. A monitoring tool to evaluate the Organisational Performance Management System (OPMS) of Home Affairs will be developed. Programme Management (cont.)
The Office of the Accountant-General will provide support to the Department in respect of the following: Improvement of the value-add of the Internal Audit function in the Department. Assisting the Department to attend to issues raised in the report of the Auditor-General. Improving the capability of management and Internal Audit to deal with significant areas of risk. Assisting with the setting up of governance structures. Financial management and internal controls
Many of the challenges facing the Department are interrelated and they range from high-level strategic matters to practical day-to-day front office issues. Effective leadership, people management and appropriate systems are key to the Department functioning better. The effective implementation of ICT projects and the review of the organisational structure are essential for ensuring the functionality of the Department. Although some managers in the Department are highly committed, the challenge is to elevate their management ability to a more strategic and conceptual level. Concluding remarks
In order to turn the service delivery of the Department around it is critical that all senior managers of the Department should realize that collective responsibility is required to bring about change. Measures must be implemented to create an ethos of change, to drive change in an integrated manner and to ensure sound monitoring and reporting. While some of the challenges facing the Department require a longer term approach, interim solutions must be developed in some areas in order to improve service delivery in the meantime. Any intervention can only be sustained by the commitment, capacity and efforts of the managers of the Department themselves. Concluding remarks (cont.)
