The Government Information Technology Officers Council (GITOC) has been urged to develop core indicators that can be used to assess its effectiveness, influence, and value to the public service digitalisation journey.
Speaking at the GITOC Annual General Meeting and strategic session on Thursday in Cape Town, Public Service and Administration, Director-General, Ms Yoliswa Makhasi said GITOC must develop core indicators that can be used to assess its effectiveness, influence, and value to the public service digitalisation journey.
“One of the primary objectives of the GITOC is to share common problems and solutions in a manner that facilitates the adoption of common technologies and enhances government integration. This practice has been largely ignored and must be a core focus area in the operational plan of GITOC.
“Mandatory reporting should be explored to ensure that all departmental Government Information Technology Officers (GITO’s) support the Government Wide integration and sharing objectives. Government Information Technology Officers (GITOs) must continuously seek new methods and approaches to digitalise department’s services. It is their leadership and persuasion that will see the government reaping the benefits from the investments in ICT.
“GITOs can achieve all workable solution by playing an active role in understanding and solving business problems experienced by core programmes. This includes prioritising personal training and development to remain abreast with the cutting-edge technologies brought by the 4th Industrial Revolution. They can also do this by proving sufficient mechanisms to secure departmental digital data and related infrastructure (regular cybersecurity assessments) and collaborating on common ICT innovations to avoid duplication of ICT solutions and associated technologies,” she said.
The Director-General said the DPSA’s 2023/24 projects that impact GITOC included the four Digitalisation Solution proposals that will be developed for the BPM programme to map out business processes.
All departments will be supported to implement the DPSA Directives and the compliance processes for all ICT related directives digitized to improve data collection from departments.
The GITOC Monitoring and Evaluation will be Improved through the development of an M&E plan and indicators for assessing GITOC attendance and effectiveness.
The Professionalisation of the public service will be supported by developing a Concept document on the professionalisation of the GITO Role. Research will be conducted on innovation in the public service and a concept document developed towards the developed of an Innovation policy for the public service.
This will include the development of updated SCOA codes to support a better understanding of ICT expenditure in departments and the development of a standardised GITO Job descriptions and GITO functional structures.
She said the survey of Directors-General over the past week, conducted by the DPSA on the views of Directors- General (DGs) on the performance and effectiveness of GITO’s in the public service indicated that of the 30 DGs who responded to the survey, 90% of DGs surveyed rate the importance of technology as Extremely important with an average score of 4.9.
“This indicates that heads of department are very aware of the benefits of using technology and would be more likely to support digitalisation efforts. 70% of responding DGs are very familiar with the GITO’s functions and activities in their departments, suggesting that there is sufficient awareness of the work of GITO’s within the public service.
“It is encouraging to note that 75% of DG’s that responded have indicated their satisfaction with the performance of the GITO and the responses indicate that 64% of DG’s believe that their departments have the necessary technology skills to support business transformation,” Ms Makhasi said.
The DG said for GITOs to be better supported in their roles while complying with government regulations, there is a for more skills in cyber security and software development, consider upgrading IT structure and bring in more capability. There is also a need to prioritise filling the vacant GITO position with appropriately qualified person.
She said there is a need for Independence from SITA to cut off the middleman and for IT to be more supportive to core business of the departments. This will include fast tracking on the adoption of technology and its standards, review the internal structure and strengthen the skills set “end to end” across the value chain of the ICT division. The DG also emphasised the need to migrate from old tools to new mobile tools, reconfiguration of business processes to suit our needs.
GITOC was established as the principal inter-departmental forum focusing on ICT and Information Management (IM) in the public service, supporting and guiding the GCIO to operationalise the government IT as well as IM policies and provide feedback on their implementation and updates. From its genesis, it was supposed to provide guidance to the State Information Technology Agency SITA
