Vacancy rates in the Public Service:a critical analysis

Standing Committee on Public Accounts24 October 2007

2

Presentation outline

• Decentralised regulatory framework• Vacancy rates according to PERSAL• Analysis of the data• Key contributing factors

– Information on PERSAL– Organisational structures– HR management capacity in departments– Skills attraction and retention

• Corrective measures• Concluding remarks

3

Public Service Act and Regulations

• Public Service has a decentralised regulatory framework

• Responsibility for –

– The management of human resources; – Personnel administration;– Organisational structures; etc

• vests with departments (specifically Executing Authorities and their delegates)

4

Vacancy rate in the Public ServiceVacancies by Salary level

Salary level Unknown Filled Vacant Grand Total Vacancy rate 0 2 1,253 119 1,374 9% 1 795 30,896 18,412 50,103 37% 2 876 108,490 45,319 154,685 29% 3 1,207 101,729 33,325 136,261 24% 4 1,039 66,313 25,690 93,042 28% 5 808 82,224 22,948 105,980 22% 6 2,410 157,395 46,152 205,957 22% 7 4,160 221,514 44,858 270,532 17% 8 2,147 181,677 43,749 227,573 19% 9 620 60,735 25,621 86,976 29%

10 269 26,955 19,597 46,821 42% 11 131 16,191 3,537 19,859 18% 12 87 10,326 2,443 12,856 19% 13 11 5,267 2,478 7,756 32% 14 2 1,654 792 2,448 32% 15 663 958 1,621 59% 16 1 121 26 148 18%

Grand Total 14,565 1,073,403 336,024 1,423,992 24%

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Vacancy trends: national departments

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Vacancy trends: occupationsVacancies per Occupational Classifications.

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

ADMIN

OFF

ICEWO

RKER

S

CRAF

T REL

ATED

WORK

ER

CS ED

UCATO

RS

DRIVE

R OP

ERAT

SHIPS

ELEM

ENTAR

YOC

CUPA

T

I T P

ERSO

NNEL

NAT

SECU

R+CU

STODIA

N

OTHE

ROC

CUPA

TIONS

PROF

ESS

AND

MANA

GERS

SERV

ICE W

ORKE

RS

SOC

NAT T

ECH

MED

SCI

TECHN

IC+AS

SPR

OFES

S

NATIONAL DEPARTMENTS

Mar 02Mar 03Mar 04Mar 05Mar 06Mar 07

7

Vacancy rates in selected departments

Expenditure

DEPARTMENT Prof & Managers Vacancy Rate

Vacancy Rate Rest

Average period in months of post vacant

Total Spent

Budget

(Over) /Under Exp

%

1. SPORT & RECREATION SA 50.9% 55.4% 15.18 30086

39126

9040

30

2. JUSTICE & CONST DEVELOP 29.3% 20.4% 9.99 2632818

2830444

197626

8

3. NATIONAL TREASURY 27.3% 27.3% 17.40

4. NATIONAL TREASURY (PENSIONS-ADMINISTRATI 63.3% 34.2%

29.61

1453359

1564213

110854

8

5. COMMUNICATIONS 34.3% 45.5% 13.22 99180

99597

41697

0

6. SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 20.4% 16.2% 2.54 83743

84277

534

1

Total RSA 30.1% 13.0% 15.41 49509012

50546321

1037310

2

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Putative and actual vacancy rates

• Departments spent on average 98% of their personnel budgets in 2006/07

• The turnover rate is 11,5% (managers and professionals) and 7,7% (rest)

• Benchmark proposed by the PSC: a vacancy should be filled within 9 months

• Vacancy rate should be approx. 12%• Nominal vacancy rate is 24% (336,024 vacant

and 1,073,403 filled)

9

Time taken to fill a post

Average period of vacant posts in months

15.13

14.90 14.89

17.31

16.25

16.68

13.50

14.00

14.50

15.00

15.50

16.00

16.50

17.00

17.50

Dec 05 Mrt 06 Jun 06 Dec 06 Mrt 07 June 07

Series1

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Management of organisational structures

• 17 month average must be seen in context – often there is no intention of filling a post once is becomes vacant

• Departments often restructure and create new posts but do not abolish posts which will no longer be used

• These ‘vacant’ posts are therefore unfunded as funds have been diverted to other posts

• In practice these posts are dormant, existing only on PERSAL

• Most departments rely on systems (Excel) outside PERSAL for management information

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HR management capacity in departments

• Capacity to administer PERSAL– Administrators are not able to keep up with the

continuous changes in the organisational structures

– Conflict between administration function required by PERSAL and the management value-added function required by the Regulations

– PERSAL managers are very junior• Recruitment capacity

– Open competition resulted in a huge administrative burden to process the filling of vacancies

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Skills attraction and retention• Vacancy rates do not only reflect systems and HR

personnel challenges:– Capacity assessments conducted 2005-2007 to determine

“whether government has the all-round capacity, the proper organisational structures and the resources, successfully to implement our developmental programmes”

• Finding that there were public servants in sufficient numbers but many lacked the necessary skills

• National skills shortages also existed including IT, engineering, technical and medical professionals

• Public Service experiencing difficulty attracting retaining managers and professionals (owing to remuneration and working environment, amongst other factors)

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Reasons for terminations

EMPLOYEE REASONS FOR TERMINATION TOTAL % OF TOTAL

Financial considerations/Promotion 1 975 43.8%

Reason/s not given 1 271 28.2%

Personal aspirations 474 10.5%

Career development 431 9.6%

Relocation 155 3.5%

Leadership and management style of senior management

120 2.7%

Working environment 81 1.8%

TOTAL 4507 100%

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Working environment• Human resource matters

• Lack of career pathing following abolition of rank and leg• Application of the performance management system• Perception that job evaluation not consistently applied• Doubts expressed about the quality of the selection process• Market related salaries required for scarce skills

– Management and leadership • Lack of management skills consistently been identified• Lack of communication and clarity on roles

• Red tape• Time consumed to obtain decisions have been consistently

been identified. The red tape is in areas of procurement as well as HR related matters.

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Years of service trendsChanges in the years of service distribution from 2005 till 2007

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

>5 6 - 10 11 - 15 16 - 20 21 - 25 26 - 30 31 - 35 36 - 40 41+

Mar-05Mar-06Mar-07

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Personnel Expenditure Review– In 2006 the dpsa conducted a Personnel Expenditure

Review (PER) to form the basis of a new remuneration policy for the public service

– The PER found that remuneration has some flexibility but not enough to be competitive

– High turnover and vacancies in some occupations supported this

– Supply of skills in certain occupations limited – The PER developed the concept of the occupation-

specific dispensation: a remuneration structure, grading, career pathing and pay progression that would be specific to a profession

– Professional remuneration dispensations were developed initially for medical and legal professions educators, and dispensations for engineers and veterinarians underway

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Dispensations for professionalsAll categories of nurses July 2007

Legal profession within the Justice Cluster July 2007

All school-based educators January 2008

Office-based educators April 2008

Educator specialists April 2008

Medical officer, medical specialist, pharmacologist, pharmacist and emergency care practitioners

July 2008

Correctional officials July 2008

Medical and therapeutic support services July 2009

Engineers, architects, environmentalists and other identified professionals

July 2009

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Corrective measures (1)• Developing capacity

– SAMDI to become Public Service Academy• “Massified” training for public servants

– Competency assessments for SMS for recruitment and development purposes

– Accelerated Development Programme– Implementation of the draft Human Resource

Development Strategy once finalised• Turnover

– Assessment of the current job evaluation process and system

– Introduction of government agencies in the Public Service Amendment Bill

– Considering imposing restrictions on movement prior to completion of probation

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Corrective measures (2)• Quality of information on PERSAL

– Circulars to departments requiring them to ‘clean up’ their PERSAL information

– Developing strategy to enhance data• Integrated Financial Management System

(IFMS) – will consolidate and renew government’s back

office applications – Will cover Financial Management, Human

Resource Management, Supply Chain Management, Asset Management and Business Intelligence

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Corrective measures (3)• Quality of organisational structures

– Regulations amended to require departments to consult the Minister regarding amendments to the top three levels of their organisational structures

– Guide on the development of organisational structures developed

• PSCBC resolution to fill all funded positions within 6 months

• Project to strengthen the role of Human Resource Management practitioners within departments (“Repositioning the HR function in government”)

• Departments’ HR management scrutinised– Public Management Watch – set of key HR and financial

management indicators run quarterly

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Public Management Watch11

.9%

8.8%

35.3

%

21.7

%

11.7

%

11.1

%

8.0%

35.1

%

18.8

%

11.7

%

11.3

%

7.8%

35.4

%

18.9

%

14.4

%

11.0

%

7.6%

37.3

%

20.2

%

13.4

%

11.0

%

8.5%

37.9

%

20.3

%

11.6

%

11.5

%

7.7%

37.9

%

20.4

%

12.4

%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

Turnover Rate Prof andManagers

Turnover Rate Rest Prof & Managers VacancyRate

Vacancy Rate Rest % Termi- nations back-dated

Dec 05Mar 06Jun06Setp 06Dec 06Mar 07

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Concluding remarks (1)• Various contributing factors to high “vacancy

rates”:– Administration:

• Outdated information on PERSAL• Intentionally not filling posts after they have been vacated• Delays in HR administration in recruitment and selection

processes– Skills shortages and gaps:

• Skills gaps within the Public Service• Skills shortages nationally

– Public Service as employer:• Working conditions• Remuneration• Red tape

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Concluding remarks (2)

• Public Service has undertaken corrective measures to address these factors

• Quality of organisational structures improving • Remuneration imbalances largely addressed with

occupation-specific dispensations• A critical success factor will be the extent to which

the Public Service is able to develop the capacity and skills of serving public servants

• Capacity and skills of HR professionals in the Public Service is an urgent focus to improve both HR management and personnel administration

Siyabonga