Consolidated M&E Report on the Departments of Human Settlements (Housing),

1. Consolidated M&E Report on the Departments of Human Settlements (Housing), 2009/2010 Evaluation Cycle Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration 22 June 2011

2. STRUCTURE OF PRESENTATION • Background and purpose • Ranking of the departments • Comparison between previous and 2009/10 assessments • Performance per principle – highest three and lowest three • Conclusion 22

3. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE • The aim of the consolidated report on the housing sector was to provide an overview of the national department’s and the nine provincial housing departments’ performance against the Constitutional values and principles listed in section 195 of the Constitution. 33

4. RANKING OF THE DEPARTMENTS 44

5. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PREVIOUS AND THE 2009/10 EVALUATION CYCLES FOR 7 DEPARTMENTS 55

6. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PREVIOUS AND THE 2009/10 EVALUATION CYCLES FOR 7 DEPARTMENTS • Previous Evaluation Cycles = 33% (Poor performance) • 2009/10 Evaluation Cycle = 53% (Adequate performance) • Five of the seven departments have improved their performance by 10% or more: • Western Cape from good (72%) to excellent performance (86%). • National from 63% to 76% which is good performance. • Northern Cape from poor (36%) to adequate performance (55%). • Mpumalanga from poor (23%) to adequate performance (43%). • Free State from poor (22%) to adequate performance (42%). • Of concern is the 2 departments where no real improvement in performance was noted: • Limpopo declined from 52% to 49% which is still adequate performance. • North West remained at poor performance with a rating of 32%. 66

7. PERFORMANCE PER PRINCIPLE 77

8. PERFORMANCE PER PRINCIPLE • Departments scored the highest against the principles of accountability (75%), transparency (68%) and development orientation(67%). • Departments scored the lowest against the principles of good human resource management practices (39%), Representivity (37%) and fairness (31%). • Some pertinent issues about these 6 principles are highlighted in the next slides. 88

9. ACCOUNTABILITY 99

10. ACCOUNTABILITY • The average score for the ten departments is 75%. • 7 of the 10 departments received unqualified audit opinions. • The departments use the Housing Subsidy System to monitor performance, even though KZN said they experienced challenges with using the system as a project management tool and the Northern Cape said the system is highly bureaucratic (to may elaborate procedures). • There is an 86% compliance with the requirements of a good fraud prevention plan, even though five of the plans did not mention specific strategies for housing projects. • Although most departments do produce monthly management reports, few management teams provide feedback on these reports. The ability to respond to problems in a timely fashion is, therefore, severely curtailed by such an omission. • Given the limitations in the form of feedback on management reports, the issue of utilising performance information and promoting evidence-based decision-making, therefore, remains a challenge. 1010

11. TRANSPARENCY 1111

12. TRANSPARENCY • The average score for the ten departments is 68%. • Departments complied with the key requirement for annual reporting, namely that performance should be reported against predetermined objectives. • More meaningful information around housing delivery could have been provided, for example: • The number of houses completed reported separately from those under construction • The proportion and number of properties that have been transferred to their occupiers • The value of the housing • Norms around average construction time • Compliance with PAIA still not satisfactory. 1212

13. DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATION 1313

14. DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATION • The average score for the ten departments is 67%. • Departments generally complied with the PSC’s standards. • Seven of the ten departments could show beneficiary participation in the design and implementation of projects. • Project management was generally of an acceptable standard. • IDPs were considered by 8 of the ten departments. • Housing departments do not optimally use the information derived from municipal IDPs . For example, In Zululand the housing committee identified projects in their wards worth R800 million, whilst the budget for the province as a whole was R800 million highlighting the importance of having provincial government officials participating in municipal technical planning committees. • Six of the ten departments had a procedure in place to record lessons learnt and applying those lessons to future projects. 1414

15. DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATION • Government has set development objectives for the housing programme beyond the mere provision of a house. • Housing values have increased by between 13 and 57% between 2003 and 2008, depending on the area. • About 35 000 jobs have been created over the last ten years. • Slightly more female-headed households benefited from the programme than male-headed households. • For some beneficiaries the experience of formalisation has increased their financial burden, since they must spend their limited resources paying rates and services. It has even been argued by some analysts that informal housing may provide financially more viable options for the poor 1515

16. GOOD HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES 1616

17. GOOD HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES • The average score for the ten departments is 39%. • There was a limited relationship between the existence of a Work Place Skills Plan (WPSP) and the implementation thereof. Only half of the departments managed to implement their planned skills development plans. Only Western Cape assesses the impact of skills development on service delivery. • None of the departments met the PSC’s compliance standard of 90 days to fill staff vacancies. It takes the departments of housing on average 339 calendar days to fill a post. • The lack of effective monitoring of the recruitment process is one of the possible reasons for the delay in filling posts. • The PSC views efficiency in the filling of posts as an indicator of the efficiencies of many other processes. In other words, if the recruitment process is not efficient, many other administrative processes are probably also inefficient. 1717

18. REPRESENTIVITY 1818

19. REPRESENTIVITY • The average score for the ten departments is 37%. • The main reason for the poor performance is that two of the three employment equity targets, namely the targets for women and people with disabilities have not been met. • None of the departments has met the new target for women at senior management level of 50% by March 2009. All of them have, however, exceeded the previous target of 30%. 1919

20. FAIRNESS 2020

21. FAIRNESS • The average score for the ten departments is 31%. • The main reason for the poor performance is that 7 out of ten departments did not submit information for assessment against this principle. • The key administrative decision affecting the public is the allocation of houses. This is many times experienced as unfair by beneficiaries. This decision is, however, not taken by the departments, but by municipalities. • One would have expected though that the provincial departments would have taken steps to ensure that the municipalities comply with PAJA. 2121

22. FAIRNESS • Fairness requires that policies like eligibility for services should be applied evenly across the country. • E.g. allocation of houses: The following factors determine the allocation of housing: • Whether a housing project is undertaken in the area where the beneficiary lives. This requires coordination between spatial planning and planning for housing. However, many housing projects undertaken in areas of low level of need as well as low development potential. • The beneficiary’s position on the waiting list. • The vulnerability of the beneficiary • The responsibility to apply the above criteria rests with municipalities. • Given the capacity challenges of municipalities the criteria are many times not applied evenly, fairly and transparently. 2222

23. CONCLUSION • The picture which is emerging is one of departments struggling to institutionalise sound administrative practice, which will allow them to manage towards and realize proper policy outcomes. • Encouraging is that there was substantial improvement in performance. Five of seven departments that were re-assessed improved their performance by more than 10%. • The challenge facing the public housing sector is not a lack of instruments, mechanisms and institutions to manage policy outcomes, but the institutionalisation of systems and a performance culture, as well as the capacity and will of all staff members to implement the policies and systems. 2323

24. THANK YOU!