Information is power and the Central Statistical Service is determined to put it to better use than the old government, reports Aspasia Karras
IN a paper presented in August for the Institute for Advanced Social Research at the University of the Witwatersand, Deborah Possel focused on the relationship between counting and controlling.
She argued that in the apartheid state “routines of statistical measurement of the population were certainly enmeshed with the exercise of power. From this perspective, governance consisted of solving big national problems, through large-scale interventions, co-ordinated from the centre. And the agent of social transformation was a bigger, more powerful, more knowledgeable state … centralised statistical information played an important part.”
For the apartheid state, its relationship with the Central Statistical Service (CSS) was therefore of paramount importance. Now the CSS, under the direction of its new head Dr Mark Orkin, is faced with the challenge of transformation.
The questions being asked in the research community are critical. Can the CSS, as a stalwart of the apartheid system, substantively change its focus and become the organ of a completely different state with a radically altered approach to governance? Can it address the needs of a democratic, decentralised and delivery-oriented government, facing the challenges of the new millennium?
Most importantly, can it face the challenges of a developing economy in the global context? The failure of many developing states to provide relevant, precise and timely information is a costly and well-documented problem.
The present CSS inherited a grossly inefficient system, characterised by consistently late reporting, irrelevant information, as well as the more strategic problem of bias towards information that supported a particular system. Is the approach to data collection changing, or is the CSS now simply going to feed a new set of priorities, using the same approach?
Hanlie van Dyk, an applied research and policy analysis expert at the Graduate School of Public Policy and Development Management, puts it succinctly: “Clearly one has to look at whether your research priorities follow the national strategic framework. If that is the Reconstruction and Development Programme then that should influence your agenda. My fear is that we are not thinking about research in a pro-active way before it becomes a crisis. Somebody has to begin looking at the future identify trends and scenarios before we have to mobilise around issues because they have gotten out of hand.”
Orkin, coming from a non-governmental organisation background, the Community Agency for Social Inquiry which continues to propose alternative methodology frameworks and approaches to data collection, is fully aware of these questions.
“We face a tightly interlinked matrix of demands characteristic of any statistical agency in the global economy.” The internal constraints are the institutional inheritance, as well as the new budgetary and rationalisation decisions of central government and the Department of the Public Service and Administration. “No more money and no more posts.” The external environment is of an international regulatory framework imposed by agencies such as the – International Monetary Fund and the United Nations. Both require that countries report faster, post their findings on the Internet, and account for – everything. “If you do not meet their requirements you can kiss your loan access goodbye.” – Finally, there is the challenge of developing new and appropriate demographic products. This entails both a backward-looking component that – dismantles the apartheid approach to statistics, and a forward-looking one such as servicing the needs of provincial governments, and developing aggregable national standards of delivery, which can be monitored, evaluated and acted on.
At the moment the tools at the disposal of the CSS to meet these challenges are Census 96, the October Household Surveys, and over 100 economic surveys a year.
“If we are serious about the growth and development strategy, we have to understand the lessons of international experience. I call it the 20/40/60/80 model. Sweden has 160 statisticians per million, Malaysia has 80, Botswana and the Philippines 40, and South Africa 20. Countries moving up the scale of economic development are recognising the need for critical economic and budgeting intelligence and, therefore, for a central statistical service size does count.”
Orkin is categorical: the real challenge is to rightsize the public service so that it can best deliver on strategic priorities, which should be linked to the government’s rationalisation programme. But Van Dyk wonders whether the CSS will ever be able to face the challenge of the country’s strategic priorities since the products it is locked into delivering, and the heavily quantitative orientation of the staff, may prevent the kind of analysis that both she and Orkin stress is necessary.
For Orkin: “The way forward is radical institutional transformation.” The CSS appears to be well on its way to becoming a model for public sector reform. “In one year we have leaped 15, we are able to learn from international best practice and jump to the forefront.”
The process has, however, been complicated: “Half of the improvement we needed in timeousness was simply a question of better management.” The first challenge was to create a new organisation with new strategic focus areas, and employ new people for the job. The Demographic Unit is an example of this the Chief Director “Mr Census”, Pali Lehola, is the first black appointment to senior management in the history of the CSS. The approach to the census has been radical.
“We are methodologically taking democracy seriously,” explains Orkin, through close interaction with government departments and in the approach to each citizen making the census available in all languages, as well as attempting to address each citizen as an individual.
Secondly, the CSS is now divided into 29 integrated work teams of professionals and experts, linked to a performance-evaluation system, which creates a sense of individual accountability in each public servant.
In terms of information technology, Orkin compares the improvements for end users to moving straight from DOS into Windows 95.
More crucially, the innovations at provincial level will become a key leverage point for integrated national and economic planning. Each provincial office will become a source of relevant statistical information as well as a professional monitoring and evaluation tool for provincial governments.