Government delivery - More haste less speed

Summary - The government really wants to help the poor, but its intentions far outstrip its capacity to deliver. According to the latest auditor general’s report, the senior management vacancy rate in provincial and local government departments – i.e. those tasked with service delivery – was an alarming 61 per cent in 2003/4. Breakdowns in financial and administrative control are leading to creeping centralisation, which in turn is reducing provincial and local accountability. The end result is an undermining of our democracy. Part of the problem lies in the mounting pressure on the private sector to increase the pace of transformation, despite the fact that our economy has a deficit of professional, technical and managerial skills. The result is that the private sector is sucking scarce black skills out of the public sector, and local government delivery capacity is being sacrificed on the altar of private sector transformation. Other policy areas are also problematic. The housing policy has been obsessed with ‘rolling out’ cheap housing units en masse, with little concern for construction quality or the economic implications at ground level. In education it is increasingly clear that attempts to achieve a rapid increase in the percentage of learners passing matric have been pursued both by dropping standards and by manipulating weaker learners out of the school system. The principle of optimum targeting has been ignored most notably in the state’s approach to former model C schools. The integration of these schools can be a win-win situation for everyone. They have space and are generally well managed, and they produce the majority of African learners with higher-grade maths and science. However, when these schools are used as ‘overflow’ facilities and are forced to accept huge inflows of previously disadvantaged learners because of a shortage of space in predominantly African schools, they generally ‘tip’: minority learners and teachers leave, the benefits of optimisation are lost, the climate of learning changes and the schools soon cease to be centres of excellence for African learners. Thus pushing integration too fast is self-defeating. Undue haste has also threatened the provision of free electricity and water to the poor. Local authorities frequently lack the capacity to administer credit controls, apply valid tests of indigence and install the required technology. These problems were surely predictable, so why weren’t the policies phased in more gradually, together with targeted capacity-building? The same question could be asked about the government’s decision to redirect expenditure towards local clinics. Many of these have no doctors and therefore still refer patients to hospitals, which consequently are treating the same number of patients as before but with smaller budgets. Land redistribution is also being pursued well in advance of the capacity to support new land-owners with financial and other assistance. In small business development too, beneficiaries are not properly selected and loans are extended without adequate assessments of creditworthiness. The president is aware of these shortcomings and exhorted his ministers to do better at a recent cabinet lekgotla. But can any amount of pressure from the top improve municipal delivery when there is a 60 per cent vacancy rate in senior management? Good policy should be based on a careful calculation of optimal outcomes – a balance between quantity, quality, achievability and sustainability. Mbeki should not allow new policy to be approved unless it contains a realistic assessment of capacity for implementation.

The government has been inspiring in its rhetorical commitment to an improved service to the masses. The rather heroic phrase of the “rolling out” of this or that service or benefit is regularly used, suggesting vast carpets of reform being spread across the landscape of need. All too often, however, the picture that emerges after a lapse of time is of carpets of delivery with so many holes, folds and crinkles that they fall far short of the coverage intended. It is not for want of good intentions — the government really wants to help the poor — but the intentions far outstrip the capacity of the rollers.

There have been many reports by the auditor general identifying shortcomings in service delivery and financial control at various levels and points in the public service. Writing in Business Report (24 January 2005), parliamentary reporter Lynda Loxton recalls the “monotonous frequency with which the lack of proper asset management in one or another department or public entity was cited as a major challenge in ensuring effective internal control”. The situation is not improving, if the latest auditor general’s report is anything to go by.

In his general report on audit outcomes for 2003/4 tabled in parliament recently, the auditor general has been quite emphatic in concluding that the chronic shortage of senior managers threatens the ability of government to deliver on its mandates. He notes a senior management vacancy rate of over 20 per cent in six departments over the past two years. Even more alarming is his report that provincial and local government departments — the agencies tasked with actual service delivery — had a senior management vacancy rate of 61 per cent. Partly as a consequence of this managerial weakness, no fewer than 11 government departments received qualified audit reports, an increase on the number in previous years.

An even more serious general consequence, not usually referred to by the auditor general, is that breakdowns in financial and administrative control are forcing the government into a creeping centralisation of administration, leading in turn to reduced provincial, regional and local accountability. This hardly facilitates responsiveness to differing circumstances in provinces, regions and districts and in the end undermines our democracy by increasingly separating administration from interaction with local communities.

Extreme centralisation can lead to a fearsome “iron law” of oligarchy, resulting in a strangling web of machine-like delivery — the very opposite of the principle of Batho Pele (“people first”). It may be an improvement on the shambles that exists in some provinces and many local authorities, but it is equally damaging to good governance and democracy.

Assessing whether or not the problem can be solved obviously requires a detailed analysis of the location and types of vacancies beyond the scope of this article, but it also requires an evaluation of the strategic approach by government in general. This broader evaluation is cause for very deep concern because it highlights a fault line in the strategic approach that underlies policy and the targeting of implementation. All too often the government is driving its programmes beyond any sensible assessment of its capacity and resources.

The deficit of competent managers in state agencies is a good illustration. Part of the problem lies in the way the very necessary policy of employment equity is being implemented. Pressure on the private sector to increase the pace of transformation in employment is mounting. This pressure exists not only in the basic employment equity legislation but occurs through state-tendering requirements and most recently in the sector-based industry charters as well. The government is intensifying pressure for “broad-based” empowerment, which means not only black ownership but also more stringent demands for more far-reaching affirmative action in recruitment at large. The emphasis seems to be on getting maximum results in the short term.

But the South African economy has a well-known overall deficit of skills. The professional and technical skill shortages are calculable and well known. Managerial and programme co-ordination skill shortages are more difficult to quantify but are equally dire and more serious in their effects. The government knows this or should know it, but seems to ignore the implications as far as employment equity is concerned. The result is that the pressure to transform placed on the private sector is sucking scarce black technical, professional and managerial skills out of the public sector delivery systems, or is attracting the best new applicants into the private sector at the cost of the public sector. The government seems to resist the principle that one cannot have one’s cake and eat it. Local government delivery capacity is already being sacrificed on the altar of private sector transformation.

The problem is more general than transformation in employment. It pervades other areas of policy as well. In housing policy there was an obsession with numbers in defiance of constraints and issues of quality. The great anxiety to be seen to be “rolling out” cheap housing units en masse resulted in reams of ambiguous statistics on numbers built and “under construction”, the latter often including no more than loans approved in principle. Houses were built in rural traditional areas where people for centuries have been able to build their own houses with far better insulation against heat and cold than flimsy “RDP” structures. The flow of statistics disguised notable failures in the monitoring of the quality of construction, a neglect of shack upgrading and huge problems of loan repayment defaults.

In education it is now increasingly clear that attempts to engineer a rapid increase in the percentage of learners passing grade 12 have been pursued at the cost of standards and at the cost of the futures of many thousands of weaker learners who have been manipulated out of the state school system (over-age learners and repeat failures). We have a high proportion of grade 12 passes but only a trivial increase in the numbers of learners able to proceed to tertiary education. The devaluation of the “matric” certificate boosts the appearance of success in the “delivery system” but it certainly will not help school leavers to find jobs.

A key example of where the principle of optimum targeting is ignored is in the state approach to former model C schools. The integration of formerly white (or coloured and Indian) schools can be a win-win situation for all learners. The schools have space and the entry of disadvantaged learners often enriches the socio-cultural experience of schooling for minority learners. With the generally good management in these schools standards are maintained and the schools actually produce the majority of African learners with higher-grade maths and science. This is an example of an optimal outcome.

However, government legislation and regulations make it very difficult for the school governing bodies to stem an inflow of previously disadvantaged learners when for various reasons, including a shortage of space in dominantly African schools, these former minority-based schools are used as “overflow” facilities. When this happens the schools generally “tip”, more and more minority learners and teachers leave and the schools become “mass schools” in mixed areas. Then the benefits of optimisation are lost, standards become vulnerable, and the climate of learning in the schools changes. In many cases of Afrikaans schools the benefits of mother tongue education for the minority learners are also placed at risk. Under such conditions after a few years the schools cease to be centres of high-level output for the African learners. Pushing necessary and desirable integration too fast is self-defeating as far as the benefits for the previously disadvantaged learners are concerned.

The most common threat to sound optimal polices seems to be undue haste. One example is to be found in the provision of a certain level of free electricity to the poor. On paper the policy made excellent sense. Now it appears that in the 18 months duration of the new provisions, their cost of special grants to municipalities has ballooned to nearly 2,5 times the original estimate, only 12 per cent of the poor received the benefit but 88 per cent of all municipal consumers, most of whom are not poor, luxuriate with free electricity (Business Day, 19 January 2005). Similar problems have arisen with respect to free water provision to the poor. The reasons are usually a lack of capacity in local authorities to administer complex credit controls, to apply valid tests of indigence and to install the required technology.

These failures could surely have been predicted (the problem of cost recovery for water is a long-established problem). Why were longer-run trials not conducted in test areas? Why was the policy not phased in more gradually along with targeted capacity building?

These same questions have to be asked about other aspects of policy. When the department of health redirected its expenditure towards local clinics it did not properly calculate what the outcomes would be. Far too many of the clinics seem to operate without doctors. The nurses do their best but have to refer patients to hospitals. Hence the demand for hospital beds was not significantly reduced but the capacity of many of the hospitals was reduced by lower expenditure relative to demand.

Land redistribution and land restitution are being pursued well in advance of the capacity to support new landholders with agricultural extension and finance for the purchasing of equipment. In many cases agricultural production will be lost unless the white farmers (who understandably don’t have many reasons to feel generous) help the new farming ventures.

Small business development has seen failures that can be attributed to the same over-enthusiasm to roll out new services and facilitation. The assessments by government itself have reflected the deficits. Beneficiaries have not been properly selected, loans have been extended without adequate assessments of creditworthiness, service providers of business development and mentoring services have all too often been new empowerment contractors without the necessary experience and skills, and corruption has occurred in the government agencies administering the initiatives. Much the same can be said of the sector based training initiatives (Setas) about which the minister of labour and the government generally are deeply concerned. Why was intensive work not undertaken in trial initiatives to ensure workable models of implementation?

It would be a relief to find examples of great strategic caution in the design of service delivery initiatives but, ironically, some of this excessive caution is exercised where we need it least, as with the provision of anti-retroviral drugs for Aids sufferers. We are also excessively over-cautious when it comes to the granting of work permits to skilled recruits from abroad.

The president is more than aware of the shortcomings in the state delivery system. At a very recent Cabinet lekgotla, he asked tough questions, “trashed bad ideas with withering effect,” and “piled on the pressure” (Ministers sweat as President cracks the whip, Sunday Times, 23 January 2005). This kind of pressure from the top is welcome and long overdue. But how effective can it be where policies have not been designed with immovable constraints in mind? Can any amount of top-level executive pressure improve the delivery systems at municipal level when there is a 60 per cent vacancy rate in senior management?

Good policy should never specify maximum results irrespective of capacity and resources, but should rather be based on a careful calculation of optimal outcomes — a balance between quantity, quality, achievability and sustainability. Our policy-making often seems everything but “optimal”. We are not getting the numbers right.

A few years ago professor Jonathan Jansen concluded that education policy was too often formulated in order to display good intentions and ideological correctness. The same is true in many other portfolios. Mbeki should not allow new policy to be approved unless it contains a realistic assessment of capacity for implementation, resources and manpower available to support it and of the likelihood that corruption will undermine its effects. Perhaps then our ministers will be forced to descend from their status as ideological demi-gods and become honest administrators.