The public service is run by a code so detailed and archaic that it prescribes acceptable body weights for job applicants and provides endless blockages to government progress, reports Anton Harber
ONE issue, more than any other, will determine the extent to which President Nelson Mandela’s government succeeds this year in its ambitious mission.
It is the issue with which every new Cabinet minister and director general is grappling; it is at the core of every new bureaucrat’s struggle to deliver on election promises; it will determine whether the new government, soon to enter the third year of its term of office, can identify and overcome the impediments to the fulfilment of its promises.
The issue is this: the need for a radical shake-up of the national public service.
When the new government came to power, one of the most promising aspects was that it attracted to government service a new kind of person. They did not see the public service as a provider of a secure job-for-life, sheltered employment for friends of the government; they were people who had worked hard for change and were dedicated to making it happen. Many were skilled and experienced, and most had drive, determination and a commitment to the vision of social transformation which came with the new government. They came from the ranks of political organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). They were people who got things done.
Talk to them now on the record and they will give you the line: there is progress, problems were greater than expected but delivery is under way … But off the record they at least those in central government tell a different story: one of frustration, horror at the medieval workings of the bureaucracy, a creeping sense that they are being sabotaged by a machine they do not quite understand.
A number I have spoken to recently individuals who went into these positions with unbridled enthusiasm and commitment are now so frustrated they are considering leaving.
It would be a setback for the public service if these people were to abandon it. But of greater concern is the fact that the government will never deliver adequately on its promises until it confronts the archaic, over-regulated practices of the service which often ensure that the simplest task takes weeks to complete.
The Public Service Staff Code, which sets out some of these arcane rules, consists of three, full lever-arch files of rules and guidelines dealing with every aspect of public service work. It sets out, for example, the maximum and minimum weight that job applicants must have, depending on their height. It sets out how to treat an applicant who has had a bone disease (as opposed to someone who has had a recent genital infection or a chest problem).
The motor finance scheme for senior officers takes 40 pages on its own. This is not to be confused with the scores of pages on the use of government vehicles, one of the most exciting reads I have enjoyed in months. It sets out, to choose just one example, how many times employees can use a government car to fetch a child from boarding school for weekends at home during term-time if they live in an isolated place and there is no alternative form of transport available. If the trip is more than 32km, then one needs written authorisation from the Department of State Expenditure, available only on the recommendation of a director general, and the code sets out the information which must be provided (type of car, number of children) before this can be considered.
The code is accompanied by 15 lever-arch files with job designations with full details of every element of every possible job from labourer to top management.
Consider what a department head has to do to bring into the service people with new skills and attitudes. The rules oblige them to sort job applicants into two lists: internal candidates and external. They can only consider the external list if they can show that nobody on the internal candidates’ list is qualified.
In other words, they are obliged to consider not who is the best person for the job, but whether anyone inside the place is able to do it just adequately, even though there may be half a dozen better outside candidates. To deal with this, some have resorted to a process known as motivating them out giving detailed reasons why each person on the internal list is not appropriate for the job before they can consider the best candidates.
The stories are legion. Requisitioning a dictaphone, or a new bit of software, can take months. Simple decisions which should take hours are bounced from committee to committee, while people wait with little to do until a decision is made. It is this sort of practice which is frustrating those trying to bring change to government.
It is tempting to blame Minister for Public Services and Administration Zola Skweyiya for failing to assert his authority in getting rid of these bureaucratic relics. In fact, the problem is much more complicated.
Skweyiya faces a multi-faceted task. He has to transform the public service in line with the democratic order, making it representative, transparent and accountable. But he also has to catch up with the international trend to modify and limit the role of the Public Service Commission away from a body which regulates every aspect of a public official’s life to one that oversees efficiency and orderliness, setting overall norms and standards. He will also, over time, have to shrink the service to an affordable size.
But, faced with probably the most difficult task of all ministers, he found when he assumed the post that he had no office of his own, nor could he interfere with the independence of the Public Service Commission. He made some new appointments to the commission, but these individuals were quickly overwhelmed by the machinery of the place. Two years later, they are probably still trying to read and understand the Staff Code.
Skweyiya acted: he passed a new law to give himself the necessary ministerial office to play an active role and found that he had to get approval for every single post from the very people he wanted to change, the Public Service Commission. Only now, months later, is his office starting to operate.
Skweyiya is now trying a new approach. He is setting up a Presidential Review Commission, chaired by Madiba himself, which should give the minister the support and power he needs to confront the problem. Many of the new bureaucrats are pinning their hopes on this commission.
There have also been political reasons why the Cabinet has held back, wanting to avoid conflict and ensure the loyalty of civil servants over the transition period. But this focus on reconciliation has come at the cost of effective delivery of change, and there are signs of a shift in these priorities in order to bring the much-needed reform of the public service.
The extent to which the government transforms the public service will be its most important test this year and the most important indicator of its determination to deliver on its election promises.