To fast-track service delivery, the Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) will, this financial year, seek to collate public service system developers to enable collaboration and sharing of codes.
This was said by Public Service and Administration Deputy Minister, Dr Chana Pilane-Majake at the National Council of Provinces Policy Debate on the Ministry for Public Service and Administration Debate in Cape Town today.
“In this financial year, the Centre seeks to enhance the innovative capabilities of civil servants towards improved, and timeous service delivery.
“This is an effort to encourage provinces to in-source system developers to assist departments in exploiting innovation to improve service delivery.
“This year, the Centre seeks to collate public service system developers to enable collaboration and sharing of codes to solve service delivery challenges.
“Working with The Innovation Hub, we are exploring solutions to eliminate queues at service delivery points.
“This solution will enable citizens to use mobile devices to interact with some points of service delivery and access services without being physically at the venue,” she said.
Dr Pilane-Majake singled out the Virtual Thusong Center in the Northern Cape as one example that the CPSI intends to roll out throughout the country.
She says it enables citizens to access the services offered through Thusong Centres remotely through mobile and other devices without visiting these centres.
“In the meantime, the system enables the province to monitor the speed and quality of services rendered. This year, a minimum viable product will be piloted to ensure that the solution addresses citizens’ required functionalities and needs.
“We urge provinces to increase system developer recruitment. This seeks to ensure that the current cohort of ICT skills is improved and that we progress beyond desktop support to developing new, innovative solutions as part of the digital transformation of the public service.
“We are convinced that building a capable state, and a professional public service, partly entails making the state an employer of choice and preference.
“In this regard, we will continue to develop conditions of service and an environment that attracts and retains professionals in our work,” she said.
In this regard, access to housing and health services, and an innovative civil servant, are essential conditions of state capacity building and resilience.
According to research conducted by the Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority (PSETA), and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), amongst the 1.2 million public servants, only 4 608 are ICT personnel, with 1.4% primarily focusing on cyber security, 3.8% on business/systems analysis and 13.2% focusing on system development and maintenance.
Deputy Minister Pilane-Majake said this indicates the serious challenge for digitisation and digital transformation.
In this financial year, the Centre is allocated a budget of R46 million. Meanwhile, this is seen as progressive. Dr Pilane-Majake said it nevertheless does not meet the increasing demands on the Center by government institutions.
