EEHCStrategy

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REPORT ON SKILLS LEVELS IN MUNICIPALITIES Present
ation to the Portfolio Committee on Local
Government 06 September 2005

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OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION

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• This presentation covers the following aspects
• Background
• Key observations
• Recent and emerging observations
• Technical challenges
• Recommendations

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BACKGROUND 

• Report part of the FOSAD task to review the
  capacity and organisation of the state
•  Part of this task was the need to undertake a
  skills audit that will capture the current and
  existing skills in the local government sector.
• The purpose is to indicate the problems relating
  to acquiring and retaining competent skills and
  capacity for the realisation of the vision of
  developmental local government.
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BACKGROUND

• The report captures key observations extracted
  variously from a number of data sources and
  surveys conducted by among others, the Municipal
  Demarcation Board (2004/5) Local Government SETA
  Workplace Skills Plans (2003/4) South African
  Institute of Civil Engineers (2005) and the
  Development Bank of South Africa (2004).
• Efforts are underway to consolidate all the
  available local government human resource
  information in the possession of various
  stakeholders into a concise, focused Skills Audit
  Baseline-information Report.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

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• The local government and water sectors are facing
  a large increase in the demand for skills as a
  result of the following factors
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• a) The transformation and restructuring agenda
  of the sector
• c) Employment equity considerations
• b) The transformation of human resource
  management practices, and
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• The overall number of employees within the sector
  has remained relatively stable over the last
  number of years since demarcation in 2000 at
  approximately 230 000.
• However, more significant than retrenchments has
  been the considerable outflow of skills from the
  sector because of resignations, particularly from
  managerial and skilled technical occupations.
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• q      There is a high proportion of those
  leaving the sector doing so because of death. It
  could be assumed that these deaths are HIV/Aids
  linked, escalating the need for training because
  of staff replacement.
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• q      

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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Almost 44 of employment in the sector is still
  in the lower end plant and machine operators and
  elementary occupations.
• Though only one-fifth of employment resides in
  the technician and associated professional,
  senior management and leadership categories, this
  is where the bulk of skill needs and shortages
  are.
• q Significant numbers of people in the category
  NQF 4,5 and 6 appear to be leaving the sector,
  and the replacement demand for skills is not
  being fully met, either through recruitment or
  through skills development initiatives.
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• q The greatest problems with acquiring and
  retaining skills has been in the professionals,
  senior management, and technicians associated
  professionals, occupational categories. This
  outcome is expected given widespread evidence of
  skill shortages in these high-end occupations
  across the economy.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• The following is a summary of key scarce skills
  within the sector
•   Strategic management skills, including policy
  skills and those needed to lead, develop, monitor
  and evaluate IDPs (Integrated Development
  Plans)
• Financial management skills
• Contract management skills with particular
  emphasis on building good procurement practices,
  and
• An overriding concern with the development of
  political and administrative leadership in the
  sector.
• Ø   Project management skills
• Ø   ABET (Adult Basic Education)
• Ø   Technical skills of all types
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Recruitment into the sector is reasonably
  limited, and is focussed on skills
• replacement. The bulk of the recruitment in the
  local government sector is in the following
  categories elementary occupations (30) clerks
  and service workers (21) senior officials and
  managers (11)
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• The numbers of new labour market entrants in each
  municipality and province are too small to
  determine any significant sectoral trends. The
  system of internship within local government and
  water is not at all developed.
• Staffing Levels
• MDB observes that, while the staffing levels have
  almost doubled since 2002, the Free State
  Province's average district municipality staffing
  levels are significantly lower than those found
  in other provinces.
• Limpopo and Mpumalanga also demonstrate well
  below average staffing levels. In contrast, the
  Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal have
  district-staffing levels significantly higher
  than the national average of 169 persons.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• The staffing levels in the district
  municipalities in the Eastern Cape show a steady
  decline.
• Mpumalanga and North West demonstrate slightly
  lower levels in 2004 when compared with 2002
  average staffing result.
• However, provinces in which a decrease in
  staffing levels would be expected, given the
  water and sanitation authorization for local
  municipalities, such as in the Western Cape and
  Northern Cape, this was not found. Rather, the
  Western Cape Province demonstrates one of the
  highest staffing level increases from 2002 to
  2004.
• With regard to the local municipality staffing
  levels in 2002 and 2004, the Municipal
  Demarcation Board states that the following
  provinces demonstrate an average decline
• Eastern Cape
• Free State
• Gauteng, and
• KwaZulu Natal.

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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• The remaining provinces all show increasing
  staffing levels over the years, however, they
  tend to be slight.
• In all instances, the average staffing levels for
  local municipalities are greater than that at
  district level. This is to be expected given the
  different roles and responsibilities played by
  district and local municipalities in the delivery
  of services.
• Gauteng and the Western Cape on average, remain
  the two provinces with the most human resource
  capacity at local municipality level.
• The provinces with poor ratio per employee to
  household tend to be those that contain
  municipalities covering the former Bantustan
  areas.
•  The municipalities in the large urban centres
  have significantly larger staff complements than
  those found in the Integrated Sustainable Rural
  Development Strategy (ISRDS) areas.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Technical staff
• The South African Institute of Civil Engineers
  (SAICE) Report (2005) observes that,
• Traditionally local government has been a major
  employer of civil engineering professionals, with
  engineers commanding the key roles of City
  Engineer and senior engineers/designers, whilst
  civil technicians have generally been used to
  manage maintenance and operations.
• An appreciation and understanding of the
  importance of professionals in local government
  has been lost, as a result of the restructuring
  in local government and the appointment of an
  additional, non-technical senior level of
  management.
• The Institute alleges that significant numbers of
  professional staff have been offered early
  retirement, or have been replaced by
  non-technical decision makers.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

•  The introduction of equity targets has resulted
  in the sector losing staff, and not
• being able to fill the vacant posts.
• The reason for this is that insufficient black
  professionals have reached the level
• of experience required, since black graduates
  only started entering the
• profession in larger numbers in the late
  1990s.
• Stringent criteria with regard to professional
  competency for engineers required in the past
  have been relaxed and in many instances done away
  with altogether.
• Inexperienced, young technicians, graduates in
  other built environment or engineering fields, or
  even non-technical staff is employed in senior
  positions in order to satisfy equity ratios.
• There are now only 381 engineers in
  municipalities nationwide (240 most of whom are
  to be found in metros), 369 technologists and 784
  technicians.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• In a research carried out by SAICE (2005)
  included a complete census of all civil
  professionals in the 284 local, and district
  municipalities and metros. The civil engineering
  statistics are as follows
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• No civil professionals
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• 74 of the 231 local councils have no civil
  engineers, technologists or
• technicians 
• 4 of the 47 district councils have no civil
  engineers, technologists or
• technicians
• Only one civil technician
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• 45 local councils have only one civil
  technician 
• 4 district councils have only one civil
  technician
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Only young staff
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• 43 local councils employ only technologists and
  technicians under the age of 34
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• 6 district councils employ only technologists and
  technicians under the age of 34
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• Only 70 with civil engineers
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• Only 45 local councils had any civil engineers on
  their staff
• Only 25 district councils employ any civil
  engineers on their staff
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Those local and district municipalities which did
  have staff reported that on average 35 of the
  existing posts were vacant, in addition to newly
  created posts not having been filled.
• RECENT AND EMERGING OBSERVATIONS
• The Local Government SETA is currently engaged in
  a Sectoral Skills Plan review
• process to be incorporated into the final
  submission to Minister of Labour on 30
• September 2005.
• Very few questionnaires (on scarce
  skills)responses (approximately 25) have been
  received so far from W. Cape, N. Cape, and E.
  Cape.
• Although this is not enough information to make
  claims for the sector skills gaps (still less to
  try quantify), but the observed trends hold
  true across all the submissions.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Here are the emerging observations with regard to
  skills gaps
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• Ø   Senior IT specialists
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• Senior medical allied staff - clinic
  administrators/ managers, MOH (Medical Officer of
  Health
• Environmental health specialists occupational
  health safety specialists
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• Librarians (surprisingly, and across all
  responses)
• LED (Local Economic Development) officers/
  specialists (again across all responses)
• Certain indications of shortage of finance
  managers/ senior finance people
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Engineers
• Electricians (across all submissions)
• Meter readers
• Firefighters and emergency services workers
• There are indications that where specialist posts
  are filled - like engineering, LED and Urban
  Planning, inadequately qualified people are
  placed in these jobs.
• Another interesting observation is that the
  majority of the vacancies relative to posts
  available are in clerical and basic occupational
  categories (unskilled workers).
• There are major vacancies in the support areas in
  municipal finance such as, cashiers, clerks,
  housing and housing administration, credit
  control clerks, general administration clerks.
• Labourers in all areas including water and waste,
  drain laying and refuse removal also appear to be
  lacking.
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KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Very few vacancies are being declared at senior
  management and management level.
• However, people occupying these positions appear
  not to be adequately qualified for the jobs (in
  terms of the relevant National Qualifications
  Framework levels).
• It appears that there is salary/ rank inflation,
  thus resulting in sacrificing salary allocations
  at lower level for higher-level staff.
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TRAINING CHALLENGES

• Financial skills
• Financial management training ranks foremost
  among the capacitation requirements of almost
  every local authority.
• All councillors are of the view that there could
  be no effective institutional performance without
  firm financial foundations.
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• Secondary level of financial personnel involved
  in the day-to-day running of councils including
  both internal financial administration and
  persons involved in the billing for services
  needs urgently to receive considerable additional
  training and ongoing support if councils are to
  arrest the payment and fiscal crises they
  confront currently.
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• All councils, including (in many cases,
  especially) the Metropolitan councils, face
  tremendous difficulties in terms of simply
  calculating and billing consumers correctly.
• This problem is exasperated by the free basic
  services policy, which requires considerable
  revision to existing accounting, billing, and
  rating policies.
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TRAINING CHALLENGES

• Technical skills
• A lack of technical capacitation could become a
  key challenge for the majority of municipalities
  in South Africa.
• This is most evident in low capacitated
  municipalities, where technical staff without
  adequate experience and qualifications has been
  recruited at all levels.
• Technical training, especially in low capacity
  rural councils, runs a close second in terms of
  immediate market demand.
• The demand analysis noted that there is a
  considerable shortage of technical skills across
  the full spectrum of local authorities.
• These requirements need to be addressed if local
  authorities are to succeed in their primary
  function of delivering effective services and
  maintaining and developing local infrastructure.
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TRAINING CHALLENGES

• Recent changes in municipal legislation, as well
  as the requirement that basic services be
  provided at no cost to all residents, add to the
  need for capacitation in the technical sphere.
• In addition to service-specific skills
  (engineers, pump repairmen, etc.) the study noted
  a general shortage of appropriate Information
  Technology skills.
• This affects the running of technical
  departments, billing systems, accounting systems,
  and the general administration of local
  authorities.
• Whilst some strides have been made in improving
  the IT capacity of local government, this needs
  to be enhanced considerably.
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TRAINING CHALLENGES

• Institutional capacity
• Institutional development and human resource
  capacity development are amongst the most urgent
  tasks confronting local government today.
• Councils across the spectrum face a growing
  crisis of institutional
• sustainability.
• In terms of institutional training, it is
  important to address critical shortcomings in
  institutional and associated human resource
  capacity in municipalities across the board.
• Institutional development includes the
  development of proper management procedures and
  the training of supervisors.
• It also includes the need to promote general
  institutional awareness, for example, by
  providing training relating to the changing legal
  context within which local government exists, and
  relating to the myriad of new legislation that
  often overwhelms local government practitioners.
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RECOMMENDATIONS

• Developmental local government requires both
  common and unique capabilities to equip its
  cadre of leadership.
• A core of municipal leadership (elected and
  appointed) possessing the leadership
  capabilities, service ethos and orientation
  towards development that developmental local
  government demands is a precondition for
  sustainable and performance-driven municipal
• government in South Africa.
• There is a need for strategic human performance
  interventions that can impact on the individual
  performance of managers and staff of
  municipalities.
• These interventions should seek to shape and
  affect the perspective, orientation and
  contribution of local officials to governments
  program of transformation change and development
  path.
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RECOMMENDATIONS 

• Such human performance interventions should
  include
• Identifying the minimum capacity required to
  deliver the governments programs insistence on
  professional criteria and specified minimum
  qualifications and experience (especially with
  regard to technical staff).
• Avoiding employing inexperienced and
  non-technical individuals in senior positions
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• Attracting, remunerating and retaining scare
  skills. Provision of appropriate motivation and
• resources to enable workplace training and range
  of experience required.
• A clear need to work collaboratively with various
  professional bodies/associations to inform,
  assist mentoring and coaching of professionals.  
• Introduction of special advisors on professional
  and technical services (finance, engineering and
  economic services) located appropriately at
  delivery points.
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RECOMMENDATIONS

• Professional bodies and associations can also
  assist in this regard explore the use of
  retired professionals.
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• Municipal managers becoming champions of change.
  They must possess a combination of managerial
  competence, organizational savvy and political
  sensitivity to perform their role effectively as
  champions of fundamental change
• Locating that capacity where it matters scarce
  skills and resources (professional/technical) to
  be located in key areas (e.g. district level) to
  service all municipalities in their jurisdiction.
  Thus making better use of resources that have
  been consolidated into larger structures
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• Streamlining of non-technical senior management
  to avoid delay in decision making and lack of
  appreciation and understanding of the upstream or
  downstream effect of new developments
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• Assessing current skills development programmes
  to ascertain the extent to which they are aligned
  with the unique challenges posed by the
  developmental thrust of the South African local
  government system.
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RECOMMENDATIONS

• Building of a single public service dedicated to
  integrated service delivery and
• adoption of an ethical, problem-solving and
  constructive approach to working life
• THANK YOU
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