REFLECTION ON THE WORK OF THE INTERIM MANAGEMENT TEAM IN THE EASTERN CAPE 30 JANUARY 2004 Mandate of the IMT Overall goal of the IMT is to ensure that any service delivery backlogs are addressed and to establish sound management and leadership in the Education, Health, Roads and Public Works and Social Development departments The IMT is specifically mandated to- establish turn around plans for the four target departments, including the elimination of service delivery backlogs address cross cutting issues such as disciplinary matters, procurement reform and human resource management establish appropriate management structures and back office support monitor the implementation of the turn around plans and other interventions as well as the use of conditional grants On the basis of its presentations to the Provincial EXCO and Cabinet, the IMT received additional mandates related to specific challenges IMT Roadmap Approach Comprehensive, integrated Addresses both actual delivery and the conditions that make delivery possible Mixture of department specific and province wide There are transversal challenges that have to be addressed to make departmental delivery successful, for example financial management arrangements in the Province Mix of short and long term Some solutions are immediately implementable, but will only realise benefits in coming financial years Some solutions are immediately implementable and will realise immediate benefits National deployees (full time) IMTIMT Office* EducationHealthSocDevR&PW DPSA (33)1 (end Oct) OPSC (14) Nat. Education (4) 4 Nat. Health (2) 2 Nat. SocDev (1) 1 (end Oct) Nat. P/Works (1) 1 (part time) * Includes project managers, advisers, disciplinary cases task team and support staff Concept Turnaround Strategy: transversal projects and departmental turnaround plans Strengthen leadership and management Improve HR Management Improve Internal controls and accountability Strengthen Back Office Support Sustainability Departmental Turnaround Strategies Rapid and visible Service delivery Ethics and anti- Corruption Strategy Strengthen back office support: detail PlannedAchieved Decentralize financial delegations back to departments as from 1 May Financial delegations have been provided as of 1 May Delegate procurement powers up to R5m Procurement delegations have been provided to the IMT and departments with effect from 1 May 2003 and are being used for IMT work. Source in back office support focusing on: financial management, supply chain management, integrated human resource management, legal and general administration. Tenders awarded for Phase 1. Service providers on site have attended to HR backlogs and have developed detailed service level agreement for Phase 2. SLAs in all four departments completed and signed. The scale and nature of SLAs are reduced as a result of budget shortfalls. Electronic Document Management Solution (EDMS) Document management assessment completed. Piloting approach with the Department of Education has been stopped due to tender challenges at SITA and the need to review sequencing issues. IT AssessmentReport completed and presented to EXCO on 8 October SITA was requested to act as Transaction Advisor (TA), and negotiations underway on reducing cost of engagement as TA. Project Team already appointed to assist and monitor TA. Project registered with National Treasurys PPP unit. Shared Administration CentreProgress will only be achieved once phase 2 of BOS contract underway. PlannedAchieved Strengthen back office support: detail Impact of HR backlogs (to date) ClaimsValue of claims Claims paidValue of claims paid Education Health8317Not calculated SocDev R&PW Total: Improve internal controls and accountability: detail PlannedAchieved Decentralize Internal Audit function in four IMT departments. Tender awarded and all service level agreements have been signed. Departments to have own Audit Committees. Guidelines developed and departments busy establishing audit committees. Improve HR Management: detail PlannedAchieved Implementation of resolution 7 proposalsOnly Education did not make deadline. Filling of vacanciesProcess of filling critical vacancies ongoing. Numerous adverts placed in the press. Strategy for attracting scarce skills, incentives for professionals in rural areas, internships and strategy for training people in scarce skills. Recommendations have been formulated by multi-disciplinary task team which will feed into national process. Integrated HRM strategyDeveloped and published by OTP. Support services companiesReport completed, recommendation on contracting out model adopted by EXCO, pilot taking place in Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital. Implement early retirement of employeesPlan will be revisited in 2004 Resolution 7 Strat Plan New Organogram HR Plan Imple menta tion Plan Match & Place Excess staff Vacancies EducationYes Not complet ed 582 (approx.) 283 R&PWYes HealthYes SocDevYes DraftYes (mostly social workers) Strengthen leadership and management: detail PlannedAchieved Increase management to at least 1% of social departments. Appointment process ongoing, however strategy still needs to be developed. Difficult to recruit. Only Education has figure in excess of 1%. Competency profiling of all senior managers.Individual profiling assessments done. Composite report will be used to finalise Management Development Plan. Individual reports are being discussed and distributed to departments. Workplace based management development program. Will be developed once final competency report complete. Performance agreements for senior managers. Process of establishing revised performance agreements unsatisfactory. Only Health has completed this process. Initiate disciplinary processes for managers based on existing forensic and Auditor General reports. Disciplinary proceedings initiated. One HOD currently on suspension, disciplinary case of another on appeal. Filling of critical management vacanciesProcess ongoing. Acting positions of HoD in Education, Health and Social Development Rapid and visible service delivery Objective is to pilot an innovative and fast track project implementation solution using Coega Development Corporations (CDC) fast track project management systems. Due to delays, project will not deliver tangible results in current financial year and projects are now being assimilated into PGDP. Main reason for delays is because broader legal agreement between Provincial Treasury and Coega has not been finalised. Nonetheless, a number of departments are being assisted through interim arrangements. Two of these are IMT departments (Roads and Public Works for the Both Sigcau Building and Education for school sanitation). Ethics and anti-corruption: detail PlannedAchieved 5 forensic auditsOngoing, first substantive reports received end August Disciplinary Cases Task Team (DCTT) 1319 cases on database, 222 active cases being processed, 1097 cases finalised. Additional 218 SOCPEN cases being processed Sustainable framework to manage discipline being established Joint Anti Corruption Task Team (JACTT) (Not part of IMT but report provided for full picture) JACTT has 198 cases on hand. To date has made 169 arrests, 33 convictions and closed 158 cases. Statistics as at November Education and Awareness programs Three programmes aimed at senior managers, front line staff and other employees have been developed and aligned with Batho Pele components. Industrial theatre a key element. Roll out now planned for February HotlineOperational with 201 being received. Cases referred to DCTT or JACTT as required. Permanent hotline solution being developed. Departmental progress Health keeping to turn around plan and implementing it according to planned time frames Education making progress with projects related to corporate support and management. Social Development is focusing its turn around on back office support and internal controls as a result of budget constraints and is delaying the department-specific plans (service delivery projects) for 2004/05 financial year. Projects that are going ahead (in part) relate to mobile registration services as well as mobile welfare developmental services. Roads and Public Works has scaled down its turn around plan because of budget constraints but is making slow progress on these scaled downed plans (as a result of budget) Budget challenges RequiredAvailableShortfall (as at December 2003) Education Health Social Development Roads and Public Works Total: Budget challenges Implementation of plans and projects largely dependent on budget. Even if budget became available now, only part of plans and projects can be implemented in current financial year. DPSA has carried cost of various projects on the agreement that the Province will refund. Refund has not taken place. In addition DPSA and OPSC carry costs for operations also on the basis of refundable expenses, but also this refund has not taken place. These national departments are experiencing serious cash flow problems and will be forced to scale down its own projects and consider reducing its support to the Eastern Cape. To minimise impact of slow implementation and life span of IMT, the plans and projects are being integrated into strategic plans of departments for MTEF as well as the PGDP. Sustainability Sustainability of the intervention remains a key challenge. Hence the following is being done: Transversal projects are being integrated into projects of the PGDP and will be monitored in part in the Office of the Premiers M&E unit, and in part by a national structure. Parts of the transversal projects are directly being integrated into departmental plans Departmental turn around plans are being integrated into departmental strategic plans (current and next years) Capacity is being created in departments to monitor implementation in each department Project managers of the IMT are incrementally handing project management functions over to identified managers of the Eastern Cape Sustainability: Departments EducationHealthSocDevR&PW Key appointmentsYes (not funded) YesYes (funding restraints) No Project monitoring system and structure Yes Yes (final approval awaited) Project driversYes Output based monitoringYes Transversals includedPartlyYesPartlyLimited Turn around in strategic plansYes Awaiting MTEC decision MTEF budgets adaptedNot yetYesAwaiting MTEC decision Performance agreementsNot yetYesNo National deployees after MarchYesNo Sustainability: Transversals Category 1: Completed projects Category2: Medium term projects Category 3: Planned projects Projects that will be completed by end March 2004 and for which closure reports will be handed to EC Started projects that will run over a few years. These will be handed to EC and included in PGDP programmes* Identified but not commenced. Implementation planning in first quarter of 2004, for inclusion in PGDP programmes* * Need to assure that these projects are adequately funded Emerging lessons/themes Model of intervention Model assumes cooperation, support, budget, preconditions that are not present in all respects Management by committee does not work Design of an intervention Need to intervene and support need to be identified earlier, AG and OPSC reports good source of information Turn around of this nature requires more planning and fixed arrangements on issues such as accountability, budget, skills requirements and partners before the intervention is launched Quick fixes rarely work and only for certain type of challenges Sustainability and local responsibility need to be better defined Emerging lessons/themes Budget Current budgetary system does not allow for quick response to challenges Can a receiving institution realistically be expected to reprioritise to the extent where complete turn around becomes possible General skills requirements Mismatch occurred in skills requirements and skills availability of deployees, and for receiving institutions Need formal arrangement to deploy SMS cadres according to need The role of managers, politicisation and unions Managers lacking in numbers and skills Appointment of senior managers a very political process Unions that are used to playing key role in management decisions do not accept interventions Emerging lessons/themes Logistics Basic logistical support can make or break, causing delays and demoralisation The effect of deployment Long-term assignments and deployment of great number of staff impacts negatively on releasing departments Causes emotional and financial strain for deployees Emerging lessons/themes Role of central departments Organisationally, programmatically and in terms of skills, central departments are not geared for scope of IMT-type intervention Need to relook role of central departments like DPSA, SAMDI, DPLG and National Treasury can and should play Oversight Need to strengthen capacity of legislature to call departments to account Addressing poor discipline, mismanagement and corruption is an integrated and comprehensive process In general requires organisational improvements Attention to senior and juniors required Disciplinary regime needs further improvement and more support to managers without taking accountability away from managers