The public service in a democratic developmental state focusses not only on the delivery of services, but is also crucial for economic and social development. This paper from the Centre for Policy Studies examines the challenges of public service delivery in South Africa. Effective reorientation of public services in the post apartheid state will require skilled professional public servants who are responsive and accountable to the needs of the people they serve.
Ideologically, a developmental state’s mission is to ensure economic development. The state structure side provides capacity to implement economic policies effectively and is determined by various institutional, technical, administrative and political factors. The state should have autonomy from social forces so that it can devise long-term economic policies free from myopic private interests. The developmental state should be a strong state with the administrative capacity and political wherewithal to push through a developmental agenda. Finally, the state should have a social anchoring which prevents it from using its autonomy in a predatory manner and enables it to gain adhesion of key social actors.
Since the inception of the democratic state in 1994, the key developmental challenge in South Africa has been to create a public service environment where citizens no longer feel humiliated and denigrated.
- The state has to be responsive to development challenges within the context and environment that it functions in, otherwise citizens’ needs will not be met. In the early transition years, for example, a lack of co-operation and integration between public service departments led to schools and houses being built in areas with no running water or electricity.
- The manner in which the public service interacts with the public can have a substantial impact on the way citizens view and discharge their obligations to the state. Because perceptions of the public service are formed by experience of services, negative experiences seem to taint the entire public service.
- Despite a great amount of government spending on redistribution, high levels of poverty persist and the government is perceived of as inefficient. Such dissatisfaction with service delivery has resulted in 700 social protests over the last ten years.
- There tends to be no clear standards for the quality of service rendered. Where standards do exist, there are no consequences for the failure to achieve them. Should this become embedded, it would be difficult to change.
Whilst the challenges of public service delivery have been recognised by Government, there is a predominant focus on instrumental management driven solutions. These must be combined with targeted interventions to effect a change in the culture of the public service at all levels and avoid eroding its credibility and legitimacy. The public service will thus require public servants that are professional, skilled and adequately remunerated and who recognise that they are ultimately servants of the people. Furthermore, the public service needs to:
- focus on responsiveness to the public, executive government, politicians and the social and political environment
- focus on accountability to the public, executive government and politicians
- address internal challenges, which include monitoring and evaluation, management of financial resources, acquiring relevant skills, investing in proper knowledge management systems, streamlining services, recruiting, training, attracting and retaining appropriate skills, and instituting an appropriate ethical regime.
