The cost containment measures put in place by government since 2020 have drastically reduced the ballooning public sector wage bill, says Acting Public Service and Administration Minister, Mr Thulas Nxesi, during his questions for oral reply at the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Wednesday 03 August 2022.
“Government has slowed growth in the public sector wage bill through cost containment measures introduced since (Budget) 2020. The share of compensation of employees to total consolidated expenditure has decreased from 34.5% in 2019/20 to 31.6% in the 2022/23 financial year. This share is set to further reduce to about 30.8% in 2024/25.
“During the 2022 [Budget Vote], the 2021 public service wage agreement was higher than budgeted ( R20.5 billion in 2021/22 and 2022/23), however, it consists of a cash gratuity rather than a permanent adjustment of salaries which will result in long-term savings in the public sector wage bill,” he said.
He further said that as part of measures to curb the public sector wage bill growth, departments are also expected to manage the filing of both critical and non-critical posts within staff establishments while remaining within budget and still delivering on their mandates.
Wage negotiations in the public service space for the financial year 2022/23 commenced in April earlier this year at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) and are still in progress. Government have since presented the country’s economic outlook to trade unions during the pre-negotiations session.
“Negotiations are still progressing with the hope to conclude this round amicably. Should any dispute arise out of these negotiations, it will be resolved through the Dispute Resolution process of the PSCBC.” Minister Nxesi added.
Qualifications of Senior Managers
When asked to give an update regarding 35% of senior managers in the public service whose qualifications were not reflected on Persal, Minister Nxesi said: “Information provided by the DPSA to Parliament is derived entirely from Persal and excludes information for the Department of Defence and the State Security Agency (SSA), which are covered by different systems.
“The DPSA has identified as a major challenge that departments are failing to actively manage the information on Persal, which results in outdated information including non-updating of improvement in qualifications.
“The 35% of senior managers reported in April 2021 to be without requisite qualifications has since improved to 25.9% by 31 January 2022.”
Mr Nxesi said this is an improvement of almost 10%, adding that by May 2022, the total number had gone down to 2394 of which the DPSA continues to monitor the updating on Persal data and continues to remind Accounting Officers about the importance of maintaining this information.
He further said that working with the Public Service Education and Training Authority (PSETA) and the National School of Government (NSG), the DPSA has developed the Skills Audit Framework to establish the skills profile of public servants and for the design of applicable and relevant interventions to improve qualifications held by senior managers.
“These include exploring measures to introduce a formal approach to the Recognition of Prior Learning and the reinvigorating the Directive on Compulsory Capacity development, mandatory training days and minimum entry requirements for senior managers which was issued to departments in April 2017.
“The DPSA will continue to monitor the enforcement of the Directive as it is compulsory for the identified development needs of senior managers to be reflected in their Performance Agreements as Personal Development Plans,” he said.
Assessing the effectiveness of public servants
Minister Nxesi said one of the measures in place to assess the effectiveness of public servants is the Performance Management and Development System that is aimed at ensuring that the performance work plans for public servants are linked to their personal development plans.
This, he said, ensures the alignment between what public servants require from skills perspective to perform their jobs and the performance targets that have been contracted between them and their managers for achievement during a performance year.
“The uniform skills audit tool for the public service space will be unveiled in the 2023/24 performance year together with the guideline for organisational competency frameworks and once this has been institutionalised and implemented, an impact evaluation to determine the gains made will be conducted.
The Application of Learning Studies undertaken by the NSG for specific training requests, normally allows for between 6 to 12 months after the training to determine through post evaluation practices the learning gains made during the training and its transfer into the workplace as part of determining performance gains. ‘
Departments will thus be able to evaluate through the tool to inform training whether there has been a direct impact on the competency and ability of a person to be able to carry their job as well as be relevance for the future of work,” the Minister said.
