Batho Pele has its roots in a series of policies and legislative frameworks. These policies and legislative frameworks have been categorised into three themes namely: those that are overarching or transversal, those that deal with access to information and those that deal with transformation of service delivery.

• The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996 (as amended).

  Section 32 of the Constitution provides for the universal right of access to information held by the State to facilitate the exercise or protection of any right by citizens. E.g. the right to access public services in an equitable, convenient and cost-effective manner.

• The White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service of 1995 (WPTPS)
• Public Service Regulations of 1999 and 2001

These two legislative frameworks seek to transform a culture of Public Service delivery from prescribing service packages to citizens, to putting citizens at the centre of service delivery. Accordingly, all government departments both national and provincial are compelled to align their service delivery mandates and service delivery improvement plans with the overall service delivery priorities of the government based on the needs of the citizens.

They call for the setting up of service standards, defining outputs and targets, and benchmarking performance indicators against international standards. Similarly, it also calls for the introduction of monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and structures to measure progress on a continuous basis. Other requirements include:

1. The alignment of staffing plans, human resources development processes and organisational capacity building with the needs of citizens;
2. The development of financial plans that link budgets directly to service needs and personnel plans;
3. Identifying and entering into partnership agreements with the private sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) which will provide more effective forms of service delivery;
4. The development, particularly through training, of a culture of customer care and sensitivity towards the diversity of citizens in terms of race, gender and disability;

These legislative frameworks are intended to give effect to the Constitutional right of the citizen to have access to any information held by the State and binds government institutions to have information available and regularly updated to meet the changing needs of the citizens. They include:

• Open Democracy Act of 2000
• Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill of 2002
• E-Government Strategy of 2001

The legislative prescripts promote the harnessing of innovative IT based solutions to make service as well as information on services within and across government departments more accessible in an integrated manner, particularly to people in under-serviced areas. These include e-government services, electronic communications and transactions with public/private bodies, institutions and citizens and development of electronic transactions services, which are responsive to the needs of citizens and consumers.

These legislative prescripts provide for the progressive increase of access to public services and promote efficient administration and good governance in the public sector. They include:

• White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery of 1997
• Promotion of Administration Justice Act (AJA) of 2000
• Public Finance Management Act of 1999

These legislative prescripts also cover the creation of a culture of accountability, openness and transparency in public administration. The AJA prescribes that in order to give effect to the right to procedurally fair administrative action, the public should be consulted. It also emphasizes the citizens' rights to redress.

PFMA emphasises accountability in public administration and advocates value for money in procurement of goods and services within the public service. In this regard the Act prohibits fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised use of public funds.