DP1-S01 - Generic Strategic Planning Framework-2004-08-16
National Treasury
Framework and templates for provincial departments
for the preparation of
Strategic and Performance Plans for 2005-2010,
and Annual Performance Plans for the 2005 financial year
Background: Linking Strategic Planning to the Electoral Cycle
Section One: Planning, budgeting and reporting framework for provincial departments
Section Two: Framework and definitions
Section Three: Generic format for Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
Section Four: Generic format for Annual Performance Plans
16 August 2004
Contact person:
Jan Hattingh
Tel: 012 315 5009
Cell: 082 466 8128
BACKGROUND
Linking Strategic Planning to the Electoral Cycle
Progress made with strategic and performance planning to date
In November 2001 the National Treasury released a discussion document entitled “Proposed Generic Framework and Format for Strategic Plans for Provincial Departments”. Since then the document has been revised twice with a view to streamlining the format and content of strategic and performance plans, and ensuring that such plans are indeed strategic in nature.
National Treasury’s review of provincial strategic and performance plans over the past three years reveals that nearly all provincial departments are seeking to follow the format for presenting strategic planning information proposed by the above mentioned documents. This is very encouraging.
Also encouraging is the work that has taken place within certain sectors to standardise programme and sub-programme structures and to develop a basic set of common measurable objectives across these programmes and sub-programmes, thus facilitating inter-provincial comparisons.
This document outlines a further set of developments aimed at improving the quality of strategic and performance plans, while at the same time simplifying the process further. The most significant innovation is the proposed linking of the strategic planning process to the electoral cycle – which has a number of implications for the structure and content of strategic and performance plans. These implications are spelt out below.
Linking up with the electoral cycle: what does this mean?
Every five years the citizens of South Africa vote in national and provincial elections in order to choose the political party they want to govern the country or the province for the next five years. In essence the voters give the winning political party a mandate to implement over the next five years the policies and plans it spelt out in its election manifesto.
Following such elections the majority party (or majority coalition) in the National Assembly elects a President, who then selects a new Cabinet. The President and the Cabinet have the responsibility (mandate) of implementing the majority party’s election manifesto nationally. While at the provincial sphere, the majority party (or majority coalition) in each provincial legislature elects a Premier, who selects a new Executive Committee. The Premier and the Executive Committee have the responsibility (mandate) of implementing the majority party’s election manifesto within the province.
To facilitate the translation of the governing party’s election manifesto into national/provincial government policy and plans it is desirable that the strategic planning process within government be synchronised with the electoral cycle. Such a link would enable the incoming President and Cabinet (or Premier and Executive Committee) to ensure that the strategic direction and actions of government over the next five years are aimed at implementing the policies and plans necessary to give effect to the electoral mandate.
It is obviously not possible to synchronise the two processes exactly. However, the aim should be to ensure that the next planning cycle after an election reflects the policies and plans of the new government.
Overview of proposed developments
To synchronise the strategic planning process with the electoral cycle it is proposed that the current strategic and performance plans that are produced by provincial departments should be separated into two documents, as follows:
1. Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
• Purpose: The purpose of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans is to set out the newly elected provincial government’s and MEC’s strategic policy priorities and plans for the next five years. This document should serve as a blueprint for what the provincial department plans to do over the next five years.
• Focus: The focus of the document is to specify strategic goals for the provincial department as whole, and strategic objectives for each of its main service delivery areas that the provincial department will strive to achieve over the next five years. The intention is that these goals and objectives lay the foundation for the development of the Annual Performance Plans.
• Time frames: As the name implies this document must cover a period of five years from the first planning cycle following an election. Only one Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan per provincial department will be produced per election cycle.
• Linked to: The document must be developed taking into consideration a wide range of other planning frameworks ranging from the President’s Medium Term Strategic Framework through to the Integrated Development Plans of local governments. It is also important that the plans take into consideration the resource envelope specified in the current provincial MTEF. The document lays the foundation for the development of the Annual Performance Plans.
The provincial department’s performance against its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan must be evaluated and reported in the End-Term Review.
2. Annual Performance Plans
• Purpose: The purpose of the Annual Performance Plans is to set out what the provincial department intends doing in the upcoming financial year towards progressively achieving the full implementation of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
• Focus: The focus of the document is to specify measurable objectives and performance targets that will ensure that the provincial department realises its strategic goals and objectives set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. A secondary focus area is to provide annual updates on any changes made to the strategic planning framework set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan – for instance changes resulting from new policy developments or changes in environmental circumstances.
• Time frames: As the name implies this document covers the upcoming financial year. It should also cover the following two years in line with the MTEF.
• Linked to: The Annual Performance Plans should inform and be informed by the Budget and the MTEF. Indeed these plans should show how the provincial department’s future service delivery plans link to its MTEF. The in-year implementation monitoring of the Annual Performance Plans is done through the Quarterly Performance Reports, while the end-year reporting is done in the departmental performance section of the Annual Report.
Note that the intention is not to break the link between strategic and performance planning, but rather to emphasise the longer-term strategic focus of the strategic plan, and the annual performance focus of the performance plan.
It is hoped that this new approach will encourage the managements of provincial departments to be less mechanistic in the way they do strategic planning. Rather, it is hoped that because the department is only required to produce a comprehensive Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan once every five years that the management (working together with their MEC will invest the time and effort to develop really good quality, useful Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans. After all these plans need to serve as the department’s programme for action over the next five years, and are the standard against which the MEC’s and department’s performance will be measured.
It is also envisaged that the more streamlined Annual Performance Plans will reduce the management burden associated with producing these documents, as well as their length, and that these two factors will result in departments producing better quality and more user-friendly documents.
The above changes do not impact on the format of the Quarterly Performance Reports or on the departmental performance sections of the Annual Reports. The Presidency has, however, proposed the introduction of a Ten Year Review – 2014. Building on this idea it is suggested that at the end of a provincial government’s term of office each provincial department should produce an End-Term Performance Review. The aim of this Review would be to give an overall evaluation of the extent to which the department succeeded in implementing its Five-year Strategic Plan. The Ten Year Review – 2014 would then reflect on progress made by the provincial government in addressing key policy goals over the last two government terms.
The following figure gives an overview of the timing of these different planning and reporting documents, and also sets out the relationship between them. These relationships are elaborated upon more fully in Section One of this document.
Note that National Treasury continues to encourage the national and provincial departments in each of the sectors to co-operate with each other to develop a minimum set of measurable objectives and performance measures (for programmes and sub-programmes as appropriate) that all provincial departments in the respective sectors will use. Obviously these processes need to inform the individual department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans where relevant, and must definitely inform their Annual Performance Plans.
What is prescribed and what are guidelines?
Note that the National Treasury has or will prescribe the following in the Treasury Regulations:
• The production and tabling of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan (as described above) by each provincial department.
• The production and tabling of a 3-year Annual Performance Plan together with the first year of the annual performance plan providing for quarterly performance measures and targets (as described above) by each provincial department.
• The production of Quarterly Performance Reports, and the production and tabling of Annual Reports.
The rest of this document serves as a good practice guideline. In other words the proposed templates are suggested, rather than prescribed. It is envisaged that this will provide for a minimum set of information that will assist treasuries in the resource allocation process. Secondly, it is the prerogative of provincial legislature to require additional information that will assist them with their oversight responsibility. However, it is critical that departments produce only one document that caters for the information requirements of all relevant role-players and key stakeholders. The aim of this document is to indicate the kinds of information and analysis that provincial departments should ideally include in their Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans and Annual Performance Plans.
Obviously where there are sectoral processes to develop uniform formats for reporting strategic planning information, departments in those sectors need to adhere to those agreed formats.
The strategic and performance planning process for 2005/06
In order to give effect to the above changes, the following process will be followed:
▪ Provincial departments are required to submit the first draft of their Five-Year Strategic and Performance Plans, their Annual Performance Plans and Budget to the provincial treasury according to the provincial budget process schedule by no later than 31 August 2004 (Please note that this date merely illustrate when the first draft submissions should reach National Treasury and that these dates will vary across provinces and put provincial treasuries in a position to evaluate and ensure that these documents comply with the various requirements before it is forwarded to National Treasury). The National Treasury will review the Five-Year Strategic and Performance Plans and Annual Performance Plans and give detailed feedback by 15 October 2004.
▪ Provincial departments are required to submit a second draft of their Five-Year Strategic and Performance Plans, their Annual Performance Plans and Budget to the provincial treasury according to the provincial budget process schedule by no later than 10 December 2004 to the National Treasury. Again the National Treasury will review the Five-Year Strategic and Performance Plans and Annual Performance Plans, and departments whose plans are not of an acceptable standard will be contacted and given detailed feedback, and will be required to make the necessary adjustments immediately.
▪ Finally provincial departments will be required to submit final drafts in late January or early February 2005, and then publish their documents at the prescribed time in March 2005.
Contents
BACKGROUND Linking Strategic Planning to the Electoral Cycle 2
PROGRESS MADE WITH STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLANNING TO DATE 2
LINKING UP WITH THE ELECTORAL CYCLE: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 2
OVERVIEW OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENTS 3
WHAT IS PRESCRIBED AND WHAT ARE GUIDELINES? 5
THE STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLANNING PROCESS FOR 2005/06 5
SECTION ONE
1 INTRODUCTION 12
2 POINT OF DEPARTURE: THE ELECTORAL CYCLE 12
3 LINKS BETWEEN PLANNING, BUDGETING AND REPORTING PROCESSES 12
4 OVERVIEW OF PLANNING, BUDGETING AND REPORTING DOCUMENTS 15
SECTION TWO
1 INTRODUCTION 21
2 INTEGRATING GOVERNMENT PLANNING PROCESSES 21
2.1 NATIONAL, PROVINCIAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PLANNING FRAMEWORKS 21
2.2 LINKING THE FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLANS TO OTHER PLANNING FRAMEWORKS 22
2.3 UPDATING THE FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLANS 24
3 OVERVIEW OF PLANNING DOCUMENT’S FORMATS AND LINKS 25
3.1 FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLANS 25
3.1.1 AIM AND FOCUS OF PART A OF THE FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC AND PERFORMANCE PLAN 26
3.1.2 Aim and focus of Part B of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan 27
3.1.3 Aim and focus of Part C of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan 28
3.2 Annual Performance Plans 29
3.2.1 AIM AND FOCUS OF PART A OF THE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE PLAN 30
3.2.2 Aim and focus of Part B of the Annual Performance Plan 30
3.2.3 Aim and focus of Part C of the Annual Performance Plan 31
4 Information for Operational Plans 31
5 DEFINITION OF TERMS USED IN STRATEGIC PLANNING 31
5.1 STRATEGIC GOALS 31
5.2 STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 33
5.3 MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES 34
SECTION THREE
FOREWORD 41
PART A: STRATEGIC OVERVIEW 45
1 OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIC PLAN 45
2 VISION 45
3 MISSION 45
4 VALUES 45
5 SECTORAL SITUATION ANALYSIS 45
5.1 SUMMARY OF SERVICE DELIVERY ENVIRONMENT AND CHALLENGES 46
5.2 SUMMARY OF ORGANISATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND CHALLENGES 46
6 LEGISLATIVE AND OTHER MANDATES 46
7 BROAD POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC GOALS 46
8 INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO MONITOR PROGRESS 47
9 DESCRIPTION OF STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS 47
PART B PROGRAMME AND SUB-PROGRAMME PLANS 48
10 PROGRAMME X: (NAME) 48
10.1 SITUATION ANALYSIS 48
10.2 POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 48
10.3 ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS AND MEASURES PLANNED TO OVERCOME THEM 49
10.4 DESCRIPTION OF PLANNED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT MEASURES 50
10.5 SUB-PROGRAMME X.Y: (NAME) 50
10.5.1 SITUATION ANALYSIS 50
10.5.2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives 50
10.5.3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them 50
10.5.4 Description of planned quality improvement measures 50
10.6 Subprogramme X.Y: (NAME) 50
10.6.1 SITUATION ANALYSIS 50
10.6.2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives 50
10.6.3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them 50
10.6.4 Description of planned quality improvement measures 51
10.7 Resourcing information 51
11 PROGRAMME Y: (NAME) 51
11.1 SITUATION ANALYSIS 51
11.2 POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 51
11.3 ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS AND MEASURES PLANNED TO OVERCOME THEM 51
11.4 DESCRIPTION OF PLANNED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT MEASURES 51
11.5 SUB-PROGRAMME X.Y: (NAME) 51
11.6 RESOURCING INFORMATION 51
12 CAPITAL INVESTMENT, MAINTENANCE AND ASSET MANAGEMENT PLAN 52
13 CO-ORDINATION, CO-OPERATION AND OUTSOURCING PLANS 53
13.1 INTERDEPARTMENTAL LINKAGES 53
13.2 LOCAL GOVERNMENT LINKAGES 53
13.3 PUBLIC ENTITIES 53
13.4 PUBLIC, PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, OUTSOURCING ETC 53
PART C: BACKGROUND INFORMATION 54
14 APPENDIX ONE: ANALYSIS OF SERVICE DELIVERY ENVIRONMENT 54
14.1 POLICY CHANGES AND TRENDS 54
14.2 ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND EMERGING CHALLENGES 54
14.2.1 DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE PROVINCE 54
14.2.2 Employment, income and [other relevant information] 54
14.2.3 [Health, education, welfare etc] profile of people in the province 55
14.3 Evaluation of current implementation performance 55
15 APPENDIX TWO: ORGANISATIONAL INFORMATION AND THE INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT 56
15.1 ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN 56
15.2 DELEGATIONS AND PERFORMANCE AGREEMENTS 56
15.3 CAPITAL INVESTMENT, MAINTENANCE AND ASSET MANAGEMENT PLAN 56
15.3.1 LONG TERM CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND ASSET MANAGEMENT PLANS 56
15.3.2 Capital investment plan 57
15.4 Personnel 57
15.5 IT SYSTEMS 57
15.6 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 57
15.7 FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 58
15.8 AUDIT QUERIES 58
SECTION FOUR
FOREWORD 60
PART A: OVERVIEW AND STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATES 64
1 OVERVIEW 64
2 STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE ANALYSIS 64
PART B PROGRAMME AND SUB-PROGRAMME PERFORMANCE TARGETS 65
3 PROGRAMME X: (NAME) 65
3.1 SPECIFIED POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 65
3.2 PROGRESS ANALYSIS 65
3.3 ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS AND MEASURES PLANNED TO OVERCOME THEM 65
3.4 DESCRIPTION OF PLANNED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT MEASURES 65
3.5 SUB-PROGRAMME X.Y: (NAME) 65
3.5.1 SPECIFIED POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 65
3.5.2 Progress analysis 66
3.5.3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them 66
3.5.4 Description of planned quality improvement measures 66
3.5.5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators 66
3.6 Subprogramme X.Y: (NAME) 67
3.6.1 SPECIFIED POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 67
3.6.2 Progress analysis 67
3.6.3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them 67
3.6.4 Description of planned quality improvement measures 67
3.6.5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators 67
3.7 Reconciliation of budget with plan 67
4 PROGRAMME Y: (NAME) 68
4.1 SPECIFIED POLICIES, PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES 68
4.2 PROGRESS ANALYSIS 68
4.3 ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS AND MEASURES PLANNED TO OVERCOME THEM 68
4.4 DESCRIPTION OF PLANNED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT MEASURES 68
4.5 SPECIFICATION OF MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS 68
4.6 SUB-PROGRAMME X.Y: (NAME) 68
4.7 RECONCILIATION OF BUDGET WITH PLAN 68
5 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CAPITAL INVESTMENT, MAINTENANCE AND ASSET MANAGEMENT PLAN 68
6 MEDIUM-TERM REVENUES 69
6.1 SUMMARY OF REVENUE 69
6.2 DEPARTMENTAL REVENUE COLLECTION 70
6.3 CONDITIONAL GRANTS 70
6.4 DONOR FUNDING 70
7 CO-ORDINATION, CO-OPERATION AND OUTSOURCING PLANS 71
7.1 INTERDEPARTMENTAL LINKAGES 71
7.2 LOCAL GOVERNMENT LINKAGES 71
7.3 PUBLIC ENTITIES 71
7.4 PUBLIC, PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, OUTSOURCING ETC 71
8 FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: 72
8.1 STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS AUDIT QUERIES 72
8.2 IMPLEMENTATION OF PFMA 72
PART C ANALYSIS OF CHANGES TO PROGRAMMES 73
ANNEXURE ONE: CURRENT GUIDELINES AND REGULATIONS DEALING WITH STRATEGIC PLANNING 76
5.1 ANNUAL PREPARATION OF STRATEGIC PLANS 79
5.2 SUBMISSION AND CONTENTS OF STRATEGIC PLANS 79
5.3 EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE [SECTION 27(4) READ WITH 36(5) OF THE PFMA] 79
ANNEXURE TWO: INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING 82
SECTION ONE:
Planning, budgeting and reporting framework for provincial departments
Introduction
This section sets out an over arching framework that explains the links between planning, budgeting and reporting for provincial departments and the relationship between the different documents that provincial departments are expected to produce in relation to each of these processes.
Point of departure: the electoral cycle
Every five years the citizens of South Africa vote in national and provincial elections in order to choose the political party they want to govern the country and the various provinces for the next five years. In essence the voters give the winning political party a mandate to implement over the next five years the policies and plans it spelt out in its election manifesto.
Following such elections the majority party (or majority coalition) in the National Assembly elects a President, who then selects a new Cabinet. The President and the Cabinet have the responsibility (mandate) of implementing the majority party’s election manifesto nationally. While at the provincial sphere, the majority party (or majority coalition) in each provincial legislature elects a Premier, who selects a new Executive Committee. The Premier and the Executive Committee have the responsibility (mandate) of implementing the majority party’s (coalition’s) election manifesto within the province.
To facilitate the translation of the governing party’s election manifesto into national/provincial government policy and plans it is desirable that the strategic planning process within government be synchronised with the electoral cycle. Such a link would enable the incoming President and Cabinet (or Premier and Executive Committee) to ensure that the strategic direction and actions of government over the next five years are aimed at implementing the policies and plans necessary to give effect to the electoral mandate.
Obviously it is not possible to synchronise the two processes exactly. However, the aim should be to ensure that the next planning cycle following an election reflects the policies and plans of the new government.
Links between planning, budgeting and reporting processes
As noted above, the electoral mandate and the overarching goals and objectives of the new national and provincial governments must inform the development of a provincial department’s Five-Year Strategic and Performance Plan. Obviously, other sources of information will also inform it (see discussions in Section Two). In addition the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan must be developed within the overall resource envelope specified by the current MTEF. However, the plan is also expected to drive projections related to the reallocation of existing funds and the allocation of new funds in the MTEF going forward. The Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan must set out strategic goals for the provincial department as whole, and strategic objectives for each of the programmes and sub-programmes, where appropriate.
The Annual Performance Plan is based directly on the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. The Annual Performance Plan must spell out measurable objectives and performance targets for outputs that will contribute to the realisation of the strategic objectives, and ultimately the strategic goals set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. The measurable objectives and performance targets must be given for the current financial year and the next two years so as to synchronise with the MTEF. The first year of the Annual Performance Plan must inform and be informed by the department’s Annual Budget.
Figure 1: Links between plans, budgets and reports
Figure 1 shows that the Performance Agreements of the accounting officer and senior management of a department should be linked directly to both the Annual Performance Plan and the Annual Budget. In essence these agreements should make them individually responsible for the implementation of the Annual Performance Plan and Budget (or relevant portions thereof). At the end of the year their individual performances should be evaluated in terms of the extent to which they succeeded in spending the budgets and achieving the relevant performance targets that were made their responsibility in terms of their Performance Agreements.
In terms of the PFMA accounting officers are required to report on the department’s expenditure against Budget on a monthly basis. The Monthly Financial Reports are the instruments used for such reporting. Similarly, accounting officers are required to report quarterly on their progress with service delivery, and the Quarterly Performance Reports are the instruments they use for doing so.
As shown in Figure 1, the third quarter Monthly Financial Reports and Quarterly Performance Reports are particularly important as they provide information on the current year’s performance (Year 0) to be taken into consideration in the updating of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan and the development of the Annual Performance Plan and Budget for the following year (Year 1). Note that any updating of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan should be reported in Part A of the following year’s Annual Performance Plan (Year 1) - (see formats in Section Two and Four).
At the end of the financial year, the accounting officer has to compile annual financial statements to report on the implementation of the Budget, and an Annual Report to report on the implementation of the Annual Performance Plan (Year 0). All the information contained in the Annual Report, as well as information on the evaluation of managers’ individual performances against their Performance Agreements should feed into an annual review and oversight process that should involve the relevant executive authority, and both the Public Accounts Committee and relevant Portfolio Committee of the provincial legislature. Coming out of this review and oversight process should be recommendations regarding the updating of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan that would feed into the planning and budgeting process for Year 2.
The relationship between the in-year reports and end-year reports to the following years’ planning processes are illustrated in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Linking planning processes across years
[pic]
It is important to note that the Annual Report, and the outcome of the annual review and oversight process for say Year 0 cannot constitute the starting point for the annual planning and budgeting cycle for Year 1. By its very nature an Annual Report is only available to the end of a financial year. Therefore by the time the Annual Report for Year 0 becomes available, all the plans and budgets for the following Year 1 have to be in place. There is therefore absolutely no scope for the information produced after the beginning of the financial year to have any meaningful impact on the plans and budgets for that financial year. For this reason, the third quarter Monthly Financial Reports and Quarterly Performance Reports are important inputs into the following year’s planning and budgeting process. It is also the reason why the recommendations arising from the annual review and oversight process only feed into the following year +1 planning and budgeting process.
Overview of planning, budgeting and reporting documents
This section presents a brief overview of each of the planning, budgeting and reporting documents that provincial departments are expected to produce.
1. Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
• Purpose: The purpose of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans is to set out the newly elected provincial government’s and MEC’s strategic policy priorities and plans for the next five years. This document should serve as a blueprint for what the provincial department plans to do over the next five years.
• Focus: The focus of the document is to specify strategic goals for the department as a whole, and strategic objectives for each of its main service delivery areas that the department will strive to achieve over the next five years. The intention is that these goals and objectives lay the foundation for the development of the Annual Performance Plans.
• Time frames: As the name implies this document is must cover a period of five years from the first planning cycle following an election. Only one Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan per provincial department will be produced per election cycle.
• Linked to: The document must be developed taking into consideration a wide range of other planning frameworks ranging from the President’s Medium Term Strategic Framework through to the Integrated Development Plans of local governments. It is also important that the plans take into consideration the resource envelope specified in the current MTEF. The document lays the foundation for the development of the Annual Performance Plans.
The department’s performance against its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan must be evaluated and reported in the End-Term Review.
2. Annual Performance Plans
• Purpose: The purpose of the Annual Performance Plans is to set out what the provincial department intends doing in the upcoming financial year towards progressively achieving the full implementation of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
• Focus: The focus of the document is to specify measurable objectives and performance targets that will ensure that the department realises its strategic goals and objectives set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. A secondary focus area is to provide annual updates on any changes made to the strategic planning framework set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan – for instance changes resulting from new policy developments or changes in environmental circumstances, or in response to the recommendations emerging from the annual review and oversight process.
• Time frames: As the name implies this document covers the upcoming financial year. It will also cover the following two years in line with the MTEF.
• Linked to: The Annual Performance Plans should inform and be informed by the Budget and the MTEF. Indeed these plans should show how the department’s future service delivery plans link to the MTEF. The in-year implementation monitoring of the Annual Performance Plans is done through the Quarterly Performance Reports, while the end-year reporting is done in the departmental performance section of the Annual Report.
3. Annual Budget and MTEF
• Purpose: The purpose of the Annual Budget is to spell out what funds the department requests/is allocated in order to deliver on the measurable objectives and service delivery targets set out in the Annual Performance Plans.
• Focus: The focus of the Budget is to set the resource envelope for the department’s operations during the coming year. A secondary focus is to set out the parameters of future budgets through the MTEF.
• Time frames: Applies to the current financial year. The MTEF will obviously cover the current budget and the following two years. In addition departments will be required to indicate their expected capital requirements in years 4 and 5 as well (i.e. the two years following the final year of the MTEF).
• Linked to: The Budget and MTEF must inform and be informed by the Annual Performance Plans. The in-year implementation monitoring of the Budget is done through the Monthly Financial Reports and Quarterly Performance Reports, while the end-year reporting is done through the annual financial statements, which are included in the Annual Report.
4. Monthly Financial Reports
• Purpose: The purpose of the Monthly Financial Reports is to report on progress made with the implementation of the department’s Budget in the previous month.
• Focus: The focus of Monthly Financial Reports is to provide the provincial treasuries and National Treasury with information on departmental expenditures so that they can monitor progress and pick up early signs of possible problems so that they can be managed before they escalate. It also provides the accounting officer an opportunity to indicate what measures he or she is taking to ensure that implementation of the Budget remains on track.
• Time frames: within fifteen days of the end of each month the information must be submitted to the relevant treasury.
• Linked to: The Monthly Financial Reports are consolidated into the Quarterly Financial Reports, which the provincial treasuries are required to submit to the National Treasury. Obviously, all monthly financial information has to be consolidated into the annual financial statements.
In addition, the third quarter Monthly Financial Report provide information on the current year’s implementation of the budget to be taken into consideration in the updating of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan and the development of the Annual Performance Plan and Budget for the following year.
5. Quarterly Performance Reports
• Purpose: The purpose of the Quarterly Performance Reports is to report on overall progress made with the implementation of the department’s Annual Performance Plan in the previous quarter.
• Focus: The focus of Quarterly Performance Reports is to provide the executive authority, the provincial treasury and National Treasury with information on the department’s performance against its plans so that they can monitor progress and pick up early signs of possible problems, before they escalate. It also provides the accounting officer an opportunity to indicate what measures he or she is taking to ensure that implementation of the department’s Annual Performance Plan remains on track.
• Time frames: within thirty days of the end of the quarter.
• Linked to: The Quarterly Performance Reports are ultimately consolidated into the departmental performance section of the Annual Report.
In addition, the third quarter Quarterly Performance Report provide information on the current year’s performance to be taken into consideration in the updating of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan and the development of the Annual Performance Plan and Budget for the following year.
6. Annual Reports
• Purpose: The purpose of the Annual Reports is to report on the provincial department’s performance in the preceding financial year for the purposes of oversight.
• Focus: The focus of Annual Reports are twofold: first is to report on the department’s performance relative to the performance targets it set itself in its Annual Performance Plan at the beginning of the year. Second, to present the department’s audited annual financial statements – that, among other things, reflect on the department’s implementation of the Budget, and the state of financial management systems within the department.
• Time frames: the time frames for the submission of the annual financial statements for auditing etc, and for the tabling of the Annual Reports are set out in the PFMA and the Treasury Regulations.
• Linked to: As indicated above, Annual Reports report on the implementation of the Annual Performance Plan and Budget. Obviously all the in-year reports will assist in the drawing up of the Annual Reports. These Reports should be subjected to an annual review and oversight process. Recommendations emerging from this process would feed into the planning and budgeting process for the following year +1.
7. Performance Agreements
• Purpose: The purpose of the Performance Agreements is to give effect to a performance related incentive and reward system for managing senior departmental official’s job performance.
• Focus: The focus of Performance Agreements is to specify individual performance targets for the accounting officer and other senior officials. The accounting officer would sign his or her Performance Agreement with the executive authority, while senior officials would sign their Performance Agreements with the accounting officer.
• Time frames: All Performance Agreements should be signed within fifteen days of the beginning of the financial year.
• Linked to: All Performance Agreements should be linked directly to the achievement of the Five-Year Strategic Plan, the implementation of the Annual Performance Plan, and the Budget. At the end of the financial year, the Performance Agreements should be subject to a review process, and the relevant senior officials rewarded and sanctioned according to their performance. It is envisaged that departments, only after the financial and performance results become available and against the background of the Audit-General’s report, would either award or sanction the performance of senior officials within departments.
8. Long-term reports
In order to complement the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans, it is suggested that departments should be required to produce End-term Reviews towards the end of the government’s term in office. The department will report on the extent to which it has succeeded in achieving its overall strategic goals and strategic objectives that it set itself at the beginning of the five-year period. These reports could also be used as handover reports to the incoming elected political office bearers and to facilitate the smooth transition process in such instances.
There are also currently discussions underway regarding putting in place a Ten-year Review – 2014. The process is being driven by the Presidency. Clearly the End-term Reviews would feed into such a review.
The following figure gives an overview of the timing of these different planning and reporting documents, and also sets out the relationship between them.
Figure 3: The relationship and timing of the different documents
Note that separate guidelines have been issued for the development of Budgets, Monthly Financial Reports, Quarterly Financial Reports, Quarterly Performance Reports and Annual Reports. The remaining sections of this document set out guidelines for the development of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans, and the Annual Performance Plans.
Also note that National Treasury continues to encourage the national and provincial departments in each of the sectors to co-operate with each other to develop a minimum set of measurable objectives and performance measures (for programmes and sub-programmes as appropriate) that all provincial departments in the respective sectors will use. Obviously these processes need to inform individual department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans where relevant, and must definitely inform their Annual Performance Plans.
Section Two
Strategic and Performance Plans
Framework and definitions
Introduction
This section sets out a framework for the development of Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans and Annual Performance Plans by provincial departments.
As already noted, the framework seeks to synchronise strategic planning with the electoral cycle. It also seeks to reconcile the planning requirements of the PFMA and associated Treasury Regulations, the PSA regulations, and the requirements of the National Treasury for strategic planning and performance monitoring. The relevant regulations are given in Annex 1.
Integrating Government planning processes
The critical challenge facing all provincial departments is to ensure that strategic planning is developed and synchronised with the entire planning, budgeting, monitoring and reporting framework that the PFMA seeks to put in place. Another challenge is to ensure that the provincial department’s plans are formulated within the top-down frameworks set by overarching national and sectoral plans, the individual province’s own position statements or plans, as well as the bottom-up information coming from district offices, and the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) developed by local government.
This section explores how these different plans feed into the development of a provincial department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans, and through this document into the Annual Performance Plans.
1 National, provincial and local government planning frameworks
1. Overarching national planning frameworks
Parliament appoints the President with a mandate to implement the governing party’s election manifesto. The President appoints a Cabinet to assist in this task. Together the President and the Cabinet draw up a Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) aimed at translating the election manifesto into a programme of action for the government’s term of office. Progress with implementing the MTSF is reviewed each year, and the President uses the ‘State of the Nation Address’ at the beginning of each year to articulate new priorities and policies emerging from such reviews. In addition the Presidency has developed a National Spatial Development Perspective document to guide spatial development initiatives nationally.
Another very important set of national planning frameworks are those relating to the Budget, namely the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Annual Fiscal Framework that informs budget decisions in the current year. While it is acknowledged that planning needs to inform the allocation of budgets, the plans themselves need to be developed taking the overall availability of resources into account. There is thus a necessary interaction between strategic planning and budgeting.
2. Overarching provincial planning frameworks
Similarly, the each provincial legislature appoints a Premier with a mandate to implement the governing party’s (or coalition’s) election manifesto. The Premier appoints an Executive Committee to assist. Together the Premier and his/her Executive Committee develop a provincial growth and development strategy aimed at translating the election manifesto into a programme of action for the provincial government.
3. Sectoral planning frameworks
Within nearly every sector the relevant national Minister can be expected to put in place a set of strategic goals and objectives for service delivery in that sector. These objectives should be developed in consultation with provincial MEC’s and with provincial departments, and should therefore be in line with the overarching national and provincial plans. A current example of such a set of sectoral goals is the 'Tirisano Priorities’ drawn up by the National Education Department for the education sector.
4. Local government ‘Integrated Development Plans’
Probably the greatest challenge for provincial departments is to ensure that their strategic planning processes are increasingly informed by and linked to the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) that local governments are required to produce.
2 Linking the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans to other planning frameworks
Provincial departments need to take all the abovementioned planning frameworks into account when developing their Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans.
Ideally there should be a clear ‘top-down’ link between the national, provincial and sectoral priorities and the department’s own strategic goals and objectives. It should also be clear how implementation of the department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans will contribute to the progressive realisation of the overarching national and provincial government goals and objectives.
It is, however, also crucial that a department’s strategic planning process also facilitates a ‘bottom-up’ process for determining priorities. There should be clear links between the department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans and local governments’ IDPs. For instance, if a local government is establishing new residential areas the relevant provincial departments need to contribute to the development by building (and running) the required schools, clinics and other facilities in the area.
In addition, strategic planning should involve a process of interaction between the provincial head office and the department’s district offices so that ‘grassroots information’ informs the plans. However, it needs to be recognised that just as departmental managers formulate plans for the whole department in the context of overarching national and provincial frameworks, so to do district managers plan their activities within the framework set by the departmental strategic plan and budget.
It is envisaged that this ‘top-down-bottom-up’ planning process will assume increasing importance as the policy of decentralisation is implemented progressively in each of the various sectors, both at a national and provincial level.
The following figure illustrates the relationship between these different planning frameworks and provincial departments’ Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans.
Figure 4: Planning frameworks that inform the development of Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
The above figure shows the top-down-bottom-up relationships between the various planning frameworks and the planning process that leads to the production of a provincial department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. The solid arrows indicate that the provincial departments are required to develop their Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans within the policy parameters set by the various frameworks noted. In practice this is likely to significantly reduce the provincial department’s degrees of freedom when doing its planning. This is almost inevitable, and is inherent in the principles of co-operative government set out in Chapter 3 of the Constitution.
Although a provincial department’s choices are quite constrained when it comes to choosing policies, there are far fewer constraints on it when it comes to developing innovative ways of managing the actual implementation of policies. The Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans of provincial departments should therefore probably focus more on developing strategies to implement policies rather than on the development of policies.
Each provincial department is required to produce a Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan in the first planning cycle following an election. It is therefore imperative that the management of a department accesses the latest information on the other planning frameworks and evaluates carefully how these should impact upon their plans. Similarly it is imperative that those responsible for these various planning frameworks ensure that they get updated and communicated to all provincial departments during the first planning cycle following an election so that they do indeed inform provincial department’s planning processes. All role-players need to recognise that this initial planning period after an election is critical to the effective planning of service delivery over the next five-years.
3 Updating the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
As noted above the purpose of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan is to specify strategic goals for the provincial department as a whole, and strategic objectives for each of its main service delivery areas that it will strive to achieve over the next five years in order to give effect to the policy priorities the spelt out in the government’s election manifesto, and captured in the various planning frameworks. However, government’s policies do not remain static between elections. Therefore while there may be significant policy development immediately following an election, there will also be ongoing changes to policy in response to emerging problems and changing economic and social circumstances.
Given that provincial departments are only required to produce a Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan in the first planning cycle following an election, such documents will not capture such changes. It is therefore proposed that any ‘in-term’ additions or revisions to a provincial department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan should be dealt with in Part A of a department’s Annual Performance Plan.
The following figure shows how ‘in-term’ revisions to the planning frameworks have to be captured in Part A of the Annual Performance Plans.
Figure 5: In-term policy revisions captured in Part A of Annual Performance Plans
Note that any policy revisions to existing planning frameworks have to feed into the provincial department’s current planning and budgeting cycle, and can only be captured in the following year’s Annual Performance Plans. In other words there is an inevitable delay of at least a year between the announcement of a new policy initiative (for instance in the President’s ‘State of the Nation’ address) and inclusion of the initiative in the plans and budgets of a provincial department. The doted lines indicate that only significant changes in the planning frameworks should cause a provincial department to revisit its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Overview of planning document’s formats and links
This section outlines the format of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans and the Annual Performance Plans and gives details of how the latter document is linked to the former.
1 Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
It cannot be over-emphasised that the aim of producing a Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan is to detail the department’s strategic priorities. Therefore the focus must be on those issues that are strategically important. The resultant document must be clear, concise and coherent – focussing attention on the strategic things the department intends addressing or doing in the next five-year period (in addition to its ongoing service delivery functions).
Identifying strategic priorities of necessity entails making difficult choices between different areas of possible focus and action. Failure to prioritise effectively results in lack of focus and ultimately in a failure to deliver in any area effectively. Under no circumstances should a strategic plan seek to be ‘complete’ in the sense of covering all that the department is currently doing and hoping to do in the future. If this approach is exhibited in a strategic plan it will be regarded as clear evidence that the department’s management has failed in their primary task, namely to give strategic leadership.
The proposed format of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan is divided into three parts, as follows:
• Part A: provides a strategic overview of the sector and the provincial department, and specifies the strategic goals it aims to achieve over the next five-years.
• Part B: gives more detailed planning information on the individual programmes and sub-programmes and specifies measurable objectives where relevant.
• Part C: presents the background information on which the provincial department based its strategic planning. Departments are encouraged to publish the components of Part C as annexes to the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. However, should they choose not to publish one or more components, these should nevertheless be available should the portfolio committee, provincial treasury or the relevant national department request it.
It is important that each of the provincial departments in a particular sector be relatively consistent in their use of the planning framework and planning terminology. Therefore the national and provincial departments in each of the sectors are strongly encouraged to work together to develop a strategic planning format that will apply uniformly across the sector, in line with this framework.
The following figure shows how the different components of the proposed document fit together. Definitions for these different components are provided below.
Figure 6: Relationship between parts of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan
The following paragraphs describe the aim of each of the three parts in more detail.
1 Aim and focus of Part A of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan
Broadly speaking the aim of Part A of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan is to provide an overall perspective of the provincial department - its vision, mission, values, but more especially its overall strategic goals and strategic objectives for the next five years (and in some instances longer). Currently the focus is still primarily on developing strategic goals and objectives related to service delivery. It is expected that over time departments’ strategic planning processes will also extend to management/organisation, financial management and training and learning.
Obviously in Part A the focus is on departmental strategic goals and objectives – with programme specific measurable objectives being developed in Part B. It is expected that the service delivery goals and objectives should to a large extent drive the programme structure, as well as inform the set of measurable objectives and performance targets that are developed in the Annual Performance Plan.
Part A also summarises important background information relevant to the department and the strategic planning process. The aim is to enable the ordinary reader of the document to understand the context, the mandate and the main policy developments that inform the strategic plan.
2 Aim and focus of Part B of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan
Part B is the body of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. The information in this section should be grouped by main budget programme. Departments need to check that the programme structure they utilise is in line with the budget and programme structures as agreed within the sector and prescribed by the National Treasury at the time when the planning takes place (note that these structures may be refined in the course of the five-years, but such changes should be negotiated within the sector and should be reported on in the Annual Performance Plan).
Information that applicable to the programme as a whole should appear under the main programme heading and need not be repeated under each sub-programme. For example the discussion of resource implications and constraints should be presented under the main programme. On the other hand, measurable objectives should normally be defined separately for each sub-programme area. However, there may be circumstances where this is not necessary, i.e. it may be meaningful to treat a programme as a whole for the purposes of specifying such objectives.
The aim is to focus attention on the most important measurable objectives, rather than on the full spectrum of possible measurable objectives for all sub-programmes. Generally speaking departments are not required to show plans or develop measurable objectives for ‘administration’, unless there is a very specific process or project that is being embarked upon, which is sufficiently important to warrant inclusion in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Ideally the national and provincial departments within each sector should agree on:
a. A uniform programme and sub-programme structure (including the definitions of activities included in each);
b. The focus and structure of the strategic plans for the sector, i.e. which programmes will be planned at a programme level and which programmes will be planned at a sub-programme level. There may even be programmes (such as those for ‘administration’) where no plans are required (see example below).
c. A minimum set of measurable objectives to be used in relation to each programme (and those sub-programmes where appropriate).
Thus the presentation of information in Part B may be organised as follows:
Programme X
1. Information common to the programme as a whole (e.g. under sections of situation analysis, policies, constraints, etc.)
2. Sub-programme area X1 (specific information not included with the overall programme plus specific measurable objectives)
3. Sub-programme area X2 and X3 (specific information not included with the overall programme plus specific measurable objectives)
4. A discussion of the resource implications and constraints.
As indicated by item four in the above table, the department is required to present an analysis of the resource implications and constraints of its plans for each programme for the coming five years. The department should use this discussion to demonstrate that its plans are realistic from a resource perspective, and are not simply ‘pie-in-the-sky’ or an unaffordable, unsustainable wish-list. To this end the department should take the resource envelope set out in the current MTEF as a point of departure – and any plans to deviate from the MTEF should be highlighted specifically and explicitly. Departments are not required to provide projected budgets for the five-year period, such details will be worked in the development of the Annual Performance Plan and Budgets and MTEFs.
The following table presents an example from the education sector of the kind of guideline that a sector should develop in order to guide the development of Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans by provincial departments. Note that it sets out a uniform budget and programme structure and indicates the scope of the strategic plan by indicating on which programmes or sub-programmes the departments are expected to focus.
|PROGRAMME |SUB-PROGRAMME |Sub-programmes that require separate situation |
| | |analyses for xxx year |
|1. |Administration |1.1 |Office of the MEC |No plan required |
| | |1.2 |Mange, plan and corp serv | |
| | |1.3 |HR (Head Office pers dev) | |
| | |1.4 |Educator professional services | |
| | |1.5 |Conditional grants |Not in the Strat Plan |
|2. |Public ordinary school |2.1 |Public primary phase |Do a situation analysis for this sub-programme. |
| |education | | | |
| | |2.2 |Public secondary phase |Do a situation analysis for this sub-programme. |
| | |2.3 |Professional Services |Do a situation analysis for this sub-programme. |
| | |2.4 |HR Development |Do a situation analysis for this sub-programme. |
| | |2.5 |In-school sport and culture |Do a situation analysis for this sub-programme. |
| | |2.6 |Conditional Grants |Not in Strat Plan |
|3. |Independent school – |3.1 |Primary phase |Present a single situation analysis covering these |
| |subsidies | | |sub-programmes as a whole |
| | |3.2 |Secondary phase | |
|4. |Education in special schools|4.1 |Special Schools |Present a single situation analysis covering these |
| | | | |sub-programmes as a whole |
| | |4.2 |Professional Services | |
| | |4.3 |HR Development | |
| | |4.4 |In school sport and culture | |
| | |4.5 |Conditional grants |Not in the Strat Plan |
|5. |Further Education and |5.1 |Public FET colleges |Present a single situation analysis covering these |
| |Training | | |sub-programmes as a whole |
| | |5.2 |Youth colleges | |
| | |5.3 |Profession Services | |
| | |5.4 |HR Development | |
| | |5.5 |Conditional grants |Not in the Strat Plan |
|6. |Etc | | | |
3 Aim and focus of Part C of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan
Part C of this format suggests what kinds of background information and analysis should underpin the strategic planning process, and ultimately the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. It is expected that this background information and analysis should be detailed, rigorous and critical – focussing on analysing the current service delivery environment and analysing organisational information and institutional challenges.
As already noted, departments are not obliged to publish this information as part of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. It is expected that including this information in the strategic planning document would make it too bulky. Nevertheless it is expected that departments will gather this information and do the relevant analysis. They are therefore expected to have the information on hand should it be requested by their portfolio committee, provincial treasury or by the relevant national department.
Should a department wish to publish this information they could include it as annexes to the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
2 Annual Performance Plans
The aim of an Annual Performance Plan is to detail the specific performance measures and targets the department will aim to achieve in the current financial year and the next two years of the MTEF in pursuit of the strategic priorities set out in its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
The proposed format of the Annual Performance Plan is divided into three parts, as follows:
• Part A: this is where the department must give details of any changes to its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan that may arise due to new policy developments, changes in its mandate or changes in the service delivery environment.
• Part B: gives detailed planning information on the individual programmes and sub-programmes, specifying performance measures and performance targets where relevant.
• Part C: presents the analysis a department should do when making changes to programmes and planning its MTEF budget. Note that publication of this analysis is optional.
The following figure shows how the different components of the Annual Performance Plan fit together, and relate to the different sections of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Figure 7: Relationship between the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan and the Annual Performance Plan
1 Aim and focus of Part A of the Annual Performance Plan
Part A of the Annual Performance Plan should be very brief compared to Part A of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. Its primary purpose is to provide an update of the situational analysis – should there have been any significant developments in the service delivery environment over the past year that impact on the department’s strategic planning. Such impacts should be explained and if any changes to the department’s strategic focus are necessary details of such changes should be given. So any changes to the department’s strategic goals and objectives should be detailed and explained. Also any changes to the department’s mandate that may result from the shifting of functions between departments (or spheres of government), taking on of new functions or the passing of new legislation should be explained.
It is anticipated that Part A of the Annual Performance Plan that is produced at the end of the first planning cycle after an election will be very, very brief due to the fact that it appears together with the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. However, in subsequent years departments will probably have to make more use of it to provide updates on its strategic planning.
2 Aim and focus of Part B of the Annual Performance Plan
As noted above, Part B of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan presents situational analyses and measurable objectives by programme and sub-programme (as relevant). The aim of Part B of the Annual Performance Plan is, firstly, to present the performance measures and performance targets associated with each programme and sub-programme that will over the five-year period enables the department to achieve its goals and objectives. Secondly, the department must use Part B of the Annual Performance Plan to provide updates on the service delivery environment that may impact on its ability to realise the measurable objectives it set in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Part B should specify performance targets for the current financial year, and when appropriate these targets should be broken down into sub-targets for each quarter. It should also specify targets for the two years of the MTEF – obviously these latter targets may be adjusted in the course of the next planning cycle and revised targets would be published in the next Annual Performance Report.
Note that in certain instances it may be more appropriate to develop measurable objectives, performance measures and performance targets for programmes as a whole, rather than for each and every sub-programme. However, where a sub-programme is strategically important measurable objectives etc. should be developed for that sub-programme specifically. Obviously, provincial departments are only required to develop performance measure and targets for those programmes and sub-programmes where they specified specific measurable objectives in its Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Note that national and provincial departments should include appropriate performance measures in their discussions regarding the development of sector specific guidelines for strategic and performance plans, in line with this framework.
Part B must also reconcile the department’s performance targets to the budget – analysing what pressures the department expects to emerge and what it intends doing to ensure that it, nevertheless, achieves its service delivery objectives.
Thus the presentation of information in Part B of the Annual Performance Plan may be organised as follows:
Programme X
1. Updated information common to the programme as a whole
2. Sub-programme area X1 (specific information and performance measures and targets)
3. Sub-programme area X2 and X3 (same as above)
4. A discussion that reconciles the budget to the planned service delivery targets – highlighting possible areas of risk and proposed measures to ensure the department achieves its targets.
3 Aim and focus of Part C of the Annual Performance Plan
The departments should present an ABX-type analysis (see Part C of Section Four below for more details) of their budgets to show where savings and extra expenditures are required and where trade-offs might be made given the set of current and proposed programmes and the proposed performance targets.
Information for Operational Plans
Provincial departments should be producing Operational Plans in order to plan the implementation of the Annual Performance Plan, the Budget and other management objectives. It is likely that Operational Plans will be developed for each programme, and institution within a department – becoming more detailed as they are cascaded down the organisational structure. Operational Plans do not need to be published.
The following table sets out the minimum set of information that could be expected to be included in a department's Operational Plan.
|1 |Service delivery plan |
|2 |Expenditure breakdown by new economic reporting format categories |
|3 |Monthly cash flow by programme |
|4 |Conditional grants |
|5 |Donor funding |
|6 |Financial management issues |
Definition of terms used in strategic planning
1 Strategic Goals
Definition
STRATEGIC GOALS are areas of organisational performance that are critical to the achievement of the mission. They are statements that describe the strategic direction of the organisation. It is useful to think of strategic goals as outcomes to be achieved by the organisation.
Strategic goals should focus on
• Service delivery
• Management/organisation
• Financial management
• Training and learning.
Departments should continue focussing their strategic planning effort on service delivery. It is envisaged that once planning in this area has stabilised then departments can proceed to introduce the other areas. Obviously those departments that are ready and able to develop a comprehensive set of goals are encouraged to do so.
Provincial departments in a particular sector do not need to have a common set of strategic goals as priorities and emphasis is more than likely to differ across them. Nevertheless, they should relate to the national priorities for the sector, for instance the ‘Tirisano Priorities’ for the education sector or the 'Ten Point Plan' for the health sector.
Duration
Strategic goals would normally span at least five years, i.e. the electoral cycle, but may also be applicable to longer periods. While departments should review their strategic goals annually that should not be readily changed once they have been set for the current term of government. Should a department decide to change its strategic goals during the course of the five-years it should give very specific and compelling reasons for doing so.
Examples
The following two tables give examples of strategic goals that departments defined for themselves – the first from the health sector, the second from agriculture and land affairs.
Table 1: Strategic goals of the North West Health Department (2001/02)
|Providing quality health services |
|Providing accessible, equitable and affordable comprehensive primary health services |
|Well functioning and competitive hospital services |
|Improving the health status of communities through implementation of integrated health programmes |
|Well managed and effective district health system |
|Competent, empowered and performance focussed employees |
|Appropriate and effective organisational systems |
|Effective management of the department’s finance and assets |
Table 2: Strategic goals of the Eastern Cape Agriculture Department (2003/04)
|To promote sustainable utilisation of natural resources |
|Encourage increased food production |
|Increase economic activity from agriculture to 5% of the provincial GGP (currently at 3.6%) |
|Provide enabling legislation |
|Facilitate equitable access and participation by previously disadvantaged farmers to agricultural activities and resources |
|Developing integrated and sustainable rural development |
|Facilitate change management |
Discussion
Departments need to exercise great discipline in their choice of strategic goals, and not fall into the trap of trying to prioritise everything. The aim is to encourage focussed strategies and actions so as to achieve specific outcomes.
Departments should not set goals that fall outside their area of activity. For instance, the achievement of goal 3 of the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture above is only very remotely linked to the activities of the department. The weather, changes in agricultural prices, growth in other sectors of the provincial economy and individual farmers’ choices will all affect the realisation of the goal or not. One option would have been to define the growth in the agricultural sector in absolute terms, i.e. facilitate the increase in agricultural production from XXX Rands to YYY Rands (2003 prices) over the next three years.
Secondly, while goals should certainly have a general character, they also need to be sufficiently specific to direct the development of strategic objectives within the department. Goal 7 of the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture is too general – as it is not clear whether the change management should occur within the department, on farms, within agri-business or all three.
2 Strategic Objectives
Definition
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES are more concrete and specific than strategic goals. They should give a clear indication of what the department intends doing or producing in order to achieve the strategic goals it has set for itself. As such strategic objectives would normally describe high-level outputs or ‘results’ of actions that the department intends taking.
Strategic objectives should link directly to the strategic goals. Therefore the department will describe strategic goals for each of the following areas:
• Service delivery
• Management/organisation
• Financial management
• Training and learning
As with strategic goals, the department should focus on defining strategic objectives related to service delivery. Obviously those departments that wish to develop strategic goals in the other areas are encouraged to do so.
Note that while strategic objectives are intended to be more specific than strategic goals, they do not have to comply fully with the SMART principles, i.e. be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Rather the intention is that they should indicate specific areas of activity where measurable objectives are to be defined.
Duration
Strategic objectives, like strategic goals, should also span five years, but are also likely to be applicable to longer periods. It is anticipated that in most sectors strategic objectives are likely to remain quite stable over-time.
Examples
Building on the examples of strategic goals above, the two departments defined the following strategic objectives.
Table 3: Strategic objectives of the North West Health Department (2001/02)
|STRATEGIC GOAL 1: Providing quality health services |
|STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: |
|To determine and review quality service standards |
|To implement the work improvement team strategy |
|To promote a caring service culture |
|To establish quality assurance mechanisms |
|STRATEGIC GOAL 2: Providing accessible, equitable and affordable comprehensive primary health care services |
|STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: |
|To ensure equity of access to PHC services |
|To develop and implement a comprehensive package of services |
Table 4: Strategic goals of the Eastern Cape Agriculture Department (2003/04)
|STRATEGIC GOAL 1: To promote sustainable utilisation of natural resources |
|STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: |
|Prepare an inventory of Agricultural Practices and causes of degradation on resources in District |
|Identify optimal agricultural enterprises for Agro-ecological zones |
|Promote sustainable agricultural practices |
|Implement protection of natural resources |
|STRATEGIC GOAL 2: Encourage increased food production |
|STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: |
|Increase income from animals production by 10% by 2004 |
|Increase food production from crops by 5% by 2004 |
Discussion
Care must be taken to ensure that the different objectives support each other. It is therefore important to explore the linkages between the different priorities to ensure that there are no ‘unintended consequences’.
As noted above the strategic objectives should describe things that the department itself can achieve. Therefore the strategic objective to ‘increase food production from crops by 5% by 2004’ is probably not appropriate since the department is itself not responsible for planting crops.
As regards the strategic goals and objectives identified by the North West Health Department, the department itself offers the following caveat:
A weakness of the current plan was the fact that many objectives were set without clarity as to the particular goals or outcomes they were meant to achieve.
This may have a number of possible consequences. The first is that many objectives of the department cannot be seen in context of what result they are seeking to contribute to. Secondly, the allocation of resources will be stretched between too many areas and this will give rise to a heightened sense of the resources being too far short of the work at hand. Thirdly, it impacts on our ability to prioritise. Where everything is seen as equally important, the chances are that soon everything will also become urgent.
Departments must set fewer rather than more strategic objectives. The aim is to make strategic choices. If a department has lots of strategic objectives, it invariably means that the management was not prepared to make the ‘hard choices’ that are essential to prioritisation. As a result the plan will fail to be strategic in nature.
3 Measurable Objectives
Definition
MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES identify very specific things that the department intends doing or delivering in order to achieve the strategic objectives, and ultimately the strategic goals it has set. There must therefore be a direct causal link running from a measurable objective to one or more of the strategic objectives.
Measurable objectives must comply with the SMART principle, i.e. they must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Duration
When it comes to the ‘durability’ of measurable objectives it is useful to distinguish between those used to measure the core activities of the department, and those linked to specific projects. The measurable objectives of a department’s core activities will have ongoing significance. It is therefore exceptionally important that these are carefully chosen and defined – so that they can be used to build a profile of the department’s track-record.
Measurable objectives linked to specific projects are important for the duration of the project, or may simply specify project outputs or outcomes. They are useful for measuring project progress, but less important when it comes to evaluating the department’s performance against its core responsibilities.
Departments must give priority in their strategic plans to reporting measurable objectives for their ongoing activities or core responsibilities, and only include measurable objectives linked to short-term projects that are of strategic importance.
Examples
The 2001/02 guidelines for strategic planning issued by the National Treasury emphasised measurable objectives that focussed on the ‘cost, quantity, quality and timeliness’ aspects of performance. This was most evident in the format of the tables used to describe performance measures. Following the lead of the health sector, and also as a result of discussions with a range of people involved in strategic planning it was decided to move away from a specific set of performance measures. Instead sectors and departments need to identify measurable objectives and performance measures that best suit their needs.
Not all types of indicator are appropriate for every objective, while some objectives will call for more than one indicator of the same or different types. It would be ideal if the national and provincial departments in each sector could agree on a minimum set of measures/indicators for each programme/sub-programme.
The following diagram illustrates the dimensions of performance that are emphasised in the Constitution and in the PFMA, namely: equity, efficiency, economy, effectiveness and value for money.
Figure 8: Dimensions of performance
The following explanations of these dimensions of performance are offered to assist departments formulate appropriate performance measures:
• Equity
Measures of equity would monitor the extent to which the department has achieved and been able to maintain an equitable supply of comparable services across race groups, regions, urban and rural areas. It would require the department to undertake a benefit incidence analysis aimed at answering ‘Who benefits from the services being delivered?’ and ‘Where are the funds being spent and the services delivered?’ Usually equity is measured against standards, or on a comparative basis.
• Efficiency
Measures of efficiency seek to reflect how productively resources are translated into service delivery. It is therefore measured by a ratio of output: input (or input:output). Consequently it only has meaning in a relative sense, i.e. when the ratios are compared across time, or across institutions or regions.
• Economy
Measures of economy look at the cost of inputs, and mode of production to evaluate whether it is cost-effective. I.e. the aim is to answer the question ‘Was this the cheapest way of producing the desired outputs?’ These measures also only have meaning in a relative sense, which means departments need to either compare the actual cost of their outputs with budgeted costs, and explain variances or compare the cost of their outputs with the cost of similar outputs produced elsewhere, e.g. in other state institutions, provinces, in the private sector or in other countries
• Effectiveness
Indicators of effectiveness seek to reflect how well the outputs contribute to the achievement of the desired outcomes/objectives/goals. Measuring effectiveness assumes a model of how outputs relate to the achievement of the desired outcomes, e.g. vaccines strengthen children’s immune systems, which reduces the incidence of polio. Some times the causal link is less clear-cut, and there may be factors outside of the control of the department that affects the achievement of outcomes.
Note that effectiveness is usually measured by means of performance indicators because outcomes are more difficult to quantify and track than outputs. It is also likely that changes in effectiveness indicators are only likely to be realised over a period of years and not months.
• Value for money
Indicators of value for money explore people’s perceptions on whether resources have been well used to impact upon specific outcomes. While indicators of value for money are subjective in nature, the methodology used to collect the information on people’s perceptions is usually objective, e.g. customer surveys or public opinion surveys.
Given these different dimensions of performance, departments need to develop measurable objectives and related performance measures and targets that capture strategically important aspects of what they are doing or delivering so as to be able to monitor performance. All performance measures and targets need to comply with the ‘CARROT’ criteria, i.e. they need to be
• Comparable: information in a format that can be compared across time, region or institution
• Accessible: clear, easily understood
• Relevant: measures something meaningful from a management and oversight perspective
• Reliable: free from error, unbiased, complete and can be replicated
• Operational: relatively easy to collect data
• Timely: must be readily available so it can be used for management and oversight
The following table presents a range of measure-types that departments may consider using.
Table 5: Different measure-types departments can use
|Current measure-types used by most |Additional measure-types departments may |Measure-types used in the health sector |
|departments |consider | |
|Cost |Equity/distribution (of service) |Input |
|Quantity |Equity/accessibility (of service) |Process |
|Quality |Evaluations of value for money |Output |
|Timeliness | |Quality |
| | |Efficiency |
| | |Outcome |
The following table illustrates how the health sector has applied these different categories of measures.
Table 6: Performance measures and indicators for district health services as a whole (2002/03)
|Measure/Indicator |Province wide |By health |National target |
| |value |district | |
|Input | | | |
|Population served per fixed public PHC facility** |( |( | 10 000 people or |
| | | |less |
|Provincial DHS expenditure per person |( |( | |
|Provincial DHS expenditure per uninsured person |( | | |
|Total DHS expenditure (provincial plus local government) per person (if data | | | |
|available) |( |( | |
|Total DHS expenditure (provincial plus local government) per uninsured person (if| | | |
|data available) |( | | |
|Percentage of community health centres offering the full package of PHC services | | |100% |
| |( |( |by 2004 |
|Process | | | |
|Percentage of health districts with appointed manager |( | |100% |
|Percentage of health districts with formal plan |( | |100% |
|Output | | | |
|Number of visits (headcount) at public PHC facilities per person per year | | | |
| |( |( | |
|Number of visits (headcount) at public PHC facilities per uninsured person per | | | |
|year |( | |3.5 |
|Percentage of children under one year fully immunised |( |( |90% |
|Quality | | | |
|Percentage of fixed public PHC facilities in audit condition 4 or 5 | | | |
| |( |( | |
|Percentage of public PHC facilities visited at least once per month by a | | | |
|supervisor who produces a written report | | | |
| |( |( |100% |
|Percentage of public PHC facilities supported by a doctor at least once a week | | |100% |
| |( |( |by 2004 |
|Percentage of health districts with a formal quality improvement plan | | | |
| |( | | |
|Percentage of public PHC facilities without vaccines at any time of year | | | |
| |( |( |0% |
|Efficiency | | | |
|Provincial expenditure per visit (headcount) at provincial PHC facilities | | | |
| |( |( | |
|Total expenditure (provincial plus local government) per visit (headcount) at | | | |
|public PHC facilities (if data available) | | | |
| |( |( | |
|Outcome | | | |
|Number of measles cases |( |( | |
* Populations should be those of resident people. Any major cross boundary flow of patients should be explained in the text. The symbol ( means that the indicator value should be reported. District hospital indicators are listed with those for other hospitals in annex 7.
**'Fixed' means clinics plus community health centres. 'Public' means provincial plus local government facilities.
Discussion
Note that nearly all departments are involved in a wide range of activities. However, departments are NOT REQUIRED to list measurable objectives for each and every one of these activities in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. Doing this reflects a failure on the part of the management to identify critical areas and to prioritise. Departments should only include those measurable objectives that are of STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE to the realisation of the department’s strategic goals and objectives.
For this reason departments are encouraged to list a limited number of measurable objectives for each of their service delivery programmes, and for those sub-programmes that are strategically important by virtue of their size (in terms of budget) or in terms of their activities.
Note that departments are expected to have a complete set of measurable objectives as part of their internal performance management system. In other words the measurable objectives the department specifies in its strategic plan should be the strategically important subset of all the measurable objectives that the department uses to measure performance internally.
Section Three
Five-year Strategic and Performance Plans
Generic Format for Provincial Departments
Please note that Departments should only produce and table this strategic plan every five-years and need not draw up one each year. This is a high level plan and specify the strategic goals and strategic objectives the department wishes to pursue over the five year period. It does not provide for any targets or a linkage to the budget.
Foreword
Strategic planning in government should be guided by political priorities. Executive authorities (i.e. the MEC’s of provincial departments) must take overall responsibility for developing a vision for the five-year period of their term of office and beyond, developing policy and obtaining approval for the planned outcomes of the department within the political collective.
It is thus proposed that the MEC of a provincial department should set out clearly at the beginning of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan what policy priorities he or she has set and which have guided the development of the plan. The MEC is responsible for ensuring that these policy priorities are in line with the provinces' overall priorities, the priorities set by the relevant national department and the priorities of the national government.
The MEC should also use this opportunity to fully endorse the strategic plan and indicate his or her commitment to supporting and ensuring its implementation. The provides for the accountability of the MEC to the Provincial Executive Council, the provincial legislature and the public for the successful implementation of the strategic plan that his or her department has developed under their guidance. This is important since when things get tough in the implementation process, the accounting officer must know that he or she will be able to rely on the political support of the MEC.
XXXX (signature)
MEC for (Department)
Content
Part A: Strategic Overview
Mission
Values
Sectoral situation analysis
1 Summary of service delivery environment and challenges
2 Summary of organisational environment and challenges
Legislative and other mandates
Broad policies, priorities and strategic goals
Information systems to monitor progress
Description of strategic planning process
Part B: Programme and sub-programme plans
Programme X: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
6 Sub programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
7 Resource information
Programme Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
6 Resource information
Capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
Co-ordination, co-operation and outsourcing plans
1 Interdepartmental linkages
2 Local government linkages
3 Public entities
4 Public, private partnerships, outsourcing etc
Part C: Background information
Appendix one: Analysis of service delivery environment
1 Policy changes and trends
2 Environmental factors and emerging challenges
1 Demographic profile of the province
2 Employment, income and [other relevant information]
3 [Health, education, welfare etc] profile of people in the province
3 Evaluation of current implementation performance
Appendix two: Organisational information and the institutional environment
1 Organisational design
2 Delegations and performance agreements
3 Capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
1 Long term capital investment and asset management plans
2 Capital investment plan
4 Personnel
5 IT systems
6 Performance management system
7 Financial management
8 Audit queries
Part A: Strategic Overview
Overview of Strategic Plan
The accounting officer should give an executive summary of the strategic plan, highlighting significant shifts in policy or programmes, and focussing reader’s attention on the most important aspects of what the department intends doing over the next five-years.
Vision
This section must present the department's vision. It must link clearly with the province's overall vision, as well as the vision for the particular sector as a whole.
Mission
This section must present the department's mission.
Values
This component should set out the values that inform what the department strives to be and how it seeks to move in that direction through what it does. 'Values' could also be understood to refer to the 'ethos' of the department, i.e. those things that the department regards to be important.
Table 7: Examples of different health departments' values/ethos
|Western Cape Health Department |KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health |
|Departmental ethos |Core Values |
|The department functions on the following principles: |The core values that the Department espouses are: |
|All services must be rendered in a manner which is effective, |Trust build on truth, integrity and reconciliation |
|efficient, equitable, accessible and of satisfactory quality. |Open communication, transparency and consultation |
|All services must be in line with the Batho Pele policy of taking |Commitment to performance |
|the service to the people. |Courage to learn, change and innovate |
|Services and personnel must adhere to the Code of Conduct | |
Sectoral situation analysis
In this section the department should present broad information on the service delivery and institutional environment of the department. This section should be based on the detailed information that departments are expected to gather as part of the strategic planning process, and which is identified in Part C below. However this particular analysis in Part A should only focus on information that is relevant to the whole department. More detailed situation analyses by programme area should be provided in Part B of the plan.
It is suggested that national and provincial departments in particular sectors should work together to standardise the kinds of information that is presented in this section of the strategic plan. For instance it would be useful if all departments in a particular sector could present information on different aspects of their services and structure using the same definitions and the same table formats. Both health and the education sectors have gone a long way in standardising these sections. Other sectors could use the formats that they have developed as examples.
1 Summary of service delivery environment and challenges
This section would summarise the key issues arising from the discussion of the service delivery environment and challenges in Appendix One. The objective of the section is to give important background information on the demand for the departments' services and other environmental factors that informed the development of the strategic plan.
2 Summary of organisational environment and challenges
This section would summarise the key issues arising from the discussion of the organisational environment and challenges in Appendix Two. The objective of the section is to give important background information on the capacity of the department and other institutional factors that informed the development of the strategic plan.
Legislative and other mandates
This section must set out the specific constitutional and other legislative, functional and policy mandates that inform what the department does and how it does it.
It would be useful to have a brief description of these mandates, instead of the simple listing that most departments currently present. At the very least, the long titles of Acts and other policies should be stated as these long titles often provide a useful summing up of the function of the piece of legislation.
Some indication of recent changes and possible future changes to the department's mandates should also be given. This is important as these changes in mandate should be reflected in the strategic plan itself, and should also inform the analysis in Appendix Three, which focuses on how such policy and programme changes either result in increased expenditures or savings.
Attention should also be given to court rulings that impact on the department's service delivery obligations.
Broad policies, priorities and strategic goals
This section sets out the overall strategic goals and strategic objectives of the department. These should follow from the sectoral situation analysis and the legislative and other mandates. Where relevant, they should also link with any overall sectoral policies.
There should be an overall statement of policy and direction and a set of fairly broad 'strategic goals'. Rather than just listing the strategic goals, departments should give a brief description of each goal.
It is important that these goals should underpin the identification of more specific 'strategic objectives' relating to the programmes in Part B.
When drawing up these strategic goals and defining the strategic objectives in Part B it is important to understand the difference between them (see definitions in Section Two above).
Information systems to monitor progress
Previously departments were requested to indicate the ‘monitoring mechanism’ they would be using to collect information on each performance measure. This resulted in cryptic and unsatisfactory information being given. It is hoped that by including this narrative discussion of monitoring and reporting systems more useful information will come to the fore.
In this section departments should give a brief description of the different information systems it is going to be relying on to monitor and report on the implementation of the strategic plan. The department should list the relevant systems, but also give an evaluation of their functionality and reliability, as well as indicate the extent to which the information in these systems is structured consistently. Obviously if information is not structured similarly it will make reporting more difficult. For this reason departments should seek to ensure that all the information they collect is organised along the same lines.
Where problems are being experienced with information systems, these should be noted and an indication given as to by when they will be resolved.
Departments should give information on the following systems:
• Financial Information Systems
o Transaction processing system
o Accounting information system
o Internal audit system
• Operational Information Systems
• Information Reporting Systems
Description of strategic planning process
The meaningfulness and usefulness of a strategic plan is to a large extent determined by the extent and depth of staff involvement in its development. Staff that have played a meaningful role in developing a strategic plan are more likely to take ownership of it and thus actively work towards its implementation.
For this reason it is recommended that departments describe the processes they followed to develop their strategic plans. This will enable legislators and the public to evaluate the quality of the department's commitment to the strategic plan and therefore the likelihood of it actually being implemented.
This would also be an appropriate place to supply information on the processes that the department followed to get input into its planning process from partners (Government and non-Government) and stakeholders.
Part B: Programme and sub-programme plans
This part of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan should be devoted to the detailed planning of individual programmes and sub-programmes.
The ‘programme’ and ‘sub-programme’ sections of this guide need to be adjusted according to the needs of the specific department. In some cases it may be appropriate to focus on programmes as a 'whole', in others it would be more appropriate for the examination to be done at two levels, i.e. for the programme as a 'whole' and then also for each of the sub-programmes. Obviously information relevant to the programme as a whole should be presented at the ‘programme’ level, and information relevant to each sub-programme at the ‘sub-programme’ level.
Programme X: (NAME)
Give a brief description of the programme and how it is structured.
1 Situation analysis
This section should include information relevant to the entire programme. It should examine:
• The demand for the services being produced by the specific programme,
• Give an appraisal of existing services and performance,
• Identify the key challenges over the strategic plan period, and
• Discuss any other starting points relevant to the policies, priorities and objectives to be included in the next section.
Note that where there is only one situational analysis for the whole programme an integrated situational analysis is required that covers all the sub-programmes. Where separate situational analyses are presented for one or more of the sub-programmes then the situational analysis at the ‘programme’ level should only deal with broad issues, while information relevant to each of the sub-programmes should be analysed at that level.
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
These should follow from the situation analysis. Any links to the provincial Growth and Development Strategy and sector priorities (e.g. developed by the relevant national department) should be made. In the five year strategic plan departments are to provide information in Part B at a high level and its thought that it might be appropriate to provide these up to the strategic objective level. It is suggested that a table with the following structure is used to specify strategic objectives relevant to the programme and sub programmes (the table is populated with information of an Environmental Affairs Department as an example).
Table 1: Strategic objectives for programme X
|Strategic Goals |Strategic Objectives |
|1.1 |OFFICE OF THE MEC |1.1.1 |Ensure payment of Statutory obligations |
| |Commitment by the Ministry and | | |
| |Department to national and | | |
| |provincial policies | | |
| | |1.1.2 |Provide an efficient and effective administrative support to the MEC |
| | |1.1.3 |Effective management of the discretionary fund |
|1.2 |MANAGEMENT |1.2.1 |Promote accountability by the Head of the Department at all managerial levels and |
| |Manage the Department effectively | |devolve responsibilities to the most appropriate levels. |
|1.3 |CORPORATE SUPPORT |1.3.1 |Promote Human Resource Management in the Department |
| |Develop a competent workforce and | | |
| |continuously benchmark the | | |
| |internal functions and performance| | |
| |outputs against best practices. | | |
| | |1.3.2 |Co-ordination and integration of training programmes undertaken within the department |
| | | |in accordance with legal requirements as well as reporting requirements. |
| | |1.3.3 |Implement transformation policies in the department |
| | |1.3.4 |Develop special programmes to support Provincial Youth, Disabled, Women, Children, |
| | | |HIV/AIDS and others |
| | |1.3.5 |Introduce sound financial accounting processes |
| | |1.3.6 |Implement financial management accounting procedures to ensure compliance with the |
| | | |Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and other relevant financial prescripts |
| | |1.3.7 |Manage Loss Control effectively |
| | |1.3.8 |Provide for an inspectorate function to promote financial control |
| | |1.3.9 |Implement sound Strategic planning and co-ordination processes for planning, |
| | | |monitoring, research and development |
| | |1.3.10 |Implement effective provisioning procedures and policies |
| | |1.3.11 |Ensure compliance to Procurement policies and the Preferential Procurement Policy |
| | | |Framework Act (PPPFA) |
| | |1.3.12 |Introduce sound systems for information management |
| | |1.3.13 |Provide in the Information Technology requirements of the Department |
| | |1.3.14 |Provide legal advice |
| | |1.3.15 |Manage Labour Relations |
| | |1.3.16 |Develop departmental compliance policies |
| | |1.3.17 |Develop a communication strategy with the public and clients |
| | |1.3.18 |Provide effective auxiliary services |
|1.4 |PROGRAMME SUPPORT OFFICE |1.4.1 |Implement economic, efficient, effective and transparent managerial processes in the |
| |Manage the Directorate Corporate | |Directorate Corporate Support by the Programme Manager. |
| |Support effectively | | |
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
This constraints analysis should relate to the implementation of the policies and objectives identified in the previous section. Explicit attention should be given to analysing risks.
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
As quality improvements can be difficult to measure adequately in quantitative terms, this section provides for a narrative account of planned interventions to improve the quality of the services the department provides through this particular programme. Quality improvements will be appraised through both narrative reports and quantitative indicators (see next section). In planning quality improvements, reference should be made to the relevant national policies.
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
This section should include information relevant to the specific sub-programme. It should examine:
• The demand for the services being produced by the specific sub-programme,
• Give an appraisal of existing services and performance,
• Identify the key challenges over the strategic plan period, and
• Discuss any other starting points relevant to the policies, priorities and objectives to be included in the next section.
This analysis should only cover information relevant to the specific sub-programme.
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
These should follow from the situation analysis. Any links to the provincial strategic position statement and sector priorities (e.g. developed by the relevant national department) should be made.
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
This constraints analysis should relate to the implementation of the policies and objectives identified in the previous section. Explicit attention should be given to analysing risks.
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
As quality improvements can be difficult to measure adequately in quantitative terms, this section provides for a narrative account of planned interventions to improve the quality of education. Quality improvements will be appraised through both narrative reports and quantitative indicators (see next section). In planning quality improvements, reference should be made to the relevant national policies.
6 Subprogram me X.Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
……
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
……
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
……
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
……
7 Resource information
The department should give an indication of the expected resource implications of the plans for the particular programme as whole, also identifying expected constraints. Note that this discussion should not focus only on funding, but also deal with other issues such as management capacity, systems and other constraints that may affect implementation.
The discussion should indicate what measures the department intends taking to overcome these resource constraints.
Departments should work within the resource envelope of the current MTEF.
Programme Y: (NAME)
1 Situation analysis
……
2 Policies, priorities and strategic objectives
……
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
……
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
……
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
… …
6 Resourcing information
……
And so on for all the relevant programmes.
Capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
This section relates to the capital and maintenance spending incurred under all the programmes and should pull together the capital plans of the different programmes for the five-year period.
In doing this, the section should set the short and medium term capital plans in the context of goals for the capital estate over the next 10 years or more. This long-term framework for asset management should be derived from the provincial Growth and Development Strategy and should set out shifts in the asset base envisaged in the departments strategy.
The capital plan should thus reflect the outcome of analyses of the distribution and condition of facilities and demonstrate how the plan can be achieved over time within the anticipated budget envelope. The transformation process should be described and linked to the medium and long term capital targets.
There should also be a statement about the financial arrangements for the management of the asset base. This statement should describe where the funds for capital investment and maintenance are held and how the resourcing and implementation of projects will be managed. The PFMA requires that all funds will be held and managed by the delivery department. This section should therefore outline the process of change envisaged to achieve compliance with this PFMA requirement.
Table 8: New projects, upgrades and rehabilitation (R '000)*
|New projects |2004/05 |2005/06 (budget) |2006/07 |2007/08 |2008/09 |2009/10 |
| |(estimate) | |(projection) |(projection) |(projection) |(projection) |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|Programme 3 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|etc | | | | | | |
|Total new projects | | | | | | |
|Upgrading | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Rehabiliation | | | | | | |
|rrrehrerehabilitation | | | | | | |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|Programme 3 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|etc | | | | | | |
|Total upgrading and | | | | | | |
|rehabilitation | | | | | | |
* If not funded from the provincial budget details should be presented in separate note. In addition to programme totals, individual projects at or above a value of R25m should be presented separately.
Table 9: Building maintenance (R '000)
|Maintenance |2004/05 |2005/06 (budget) |2006/07 |2007/08 |2008/09 |2009/10 |
| |(estimate) | |(projection) |(projection) |(projection) |(projection) |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|Programme 3 | | | | | | |
|Etc | | | | | | |
|Total | | | | | | |
|Total as % of department | | | | | | |
|expenditure/budget | | | | | | |
Co-ordination, co-operation and outsourcing plans
1 Interdepartmental linkages
Detail the areas where the department is jointly responsible for service delivery with another state department. It should be clearly indicated exactly what the extent of the department's responsibilities are vis-à-vis the other departments. It should also be stated what mechanisms have been put in place to ensure good co-ordination among the departments.
2 Local government linkages
Departments should give details of any service delivery agreements or arrangements they have with local authorities. This should include details of all funds that the department will be transferring to local authorities for the delivery of such services. For instance in certain provinces local authorities operate clinics for which they receive funding from health departments. There are a number of similarly with housing funds for example.
3 Public entities
Give details of all the public entities for which the department is responsible.
Table 10: Details of public entities
|Name of public entity |Main purpose of public entity |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
4 Public, private partnerships, outsourcing etc
Give details of the range and value of public private partnerships, outsourcing, and transfers to NGO’s etc
Part C: Background information
Departments are not required to publish this section of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. Nevertheless it is important that they produce this information or similar information for planning purposes. Therefore departments should have this information available should it be requested by their provincial treasury or by the national department in their sector.
Those departments that wish to publish this information may do so as appendices to the main Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
Appendix one: Analysis of service delivery environment
‘Appendix one' presents the department’s analysis of what in strategic planning is referred to as the 'external environment'. The focus is thus on:
• The environment in which the department operates;
• External factors that have already or are likely to impact on the demand for its services; and
• External factors that have already or are likely to impact on its ability to deliver services.
The information in this appendix should be compiled at the beginning of the strategic planning process, and updated as the process progresses.
The section 'Summary of service delivery environment and challenges' must be based on the analysis in this appendix.
1 Policy changes and trends
What policy changes have been made and how are they likely to impact upon what the department does and the way it does?
How have such policy changes been accommodated in the strategic plan?
2 Environmental factors and emerging challenges
Here the department should give its analysis of the environment in which it operates, identifying trends and emerging challenges. Note that the information needs to be specific to the environment in which the department operates.
1 Demographic profile of the province
Demographic information that relates to the demand for the services of the particular department should be presented. There should also be comment on the trend in such information and how this is likely to impact upon the activities of the department.
2 Employment, income and [other relevant information]
Here information relevant to the particular line function should be presented. For instance in health departments should give information on access to housing, water, etc. Education should give information on access to electricity, libraries, etc.
Table 11: Occupational categories
|Types of Occupation |Number |Percent of total |
|Managers | | |
|Professionals | | |
|Technical | | |
|Clerical | | |
|Sales and services | | |
|Skilled agriculture | | |
|Artisan | | |
|Operators | | |
|Elementary occupations | | |
|Other | | |
|Unemployed | | |
Table 12: Income distribution
|Income per month |Percent of total |
|None | |
|R1 – R500 | |
|R501 – R1000 | |
|R1001 – R2500 | |
|R2501 – R6000 | |
|R6001 –R11000 | |
|> R11001 | |
|Unspecified | |
|Total | |
3 Health, education, welfare etc] profile of people in the province
Each department should present profile information relevant to the functions of the department. So for instance health departments will profile the health status of the people in the province, the education departments the education status, and the public works departments the state of roads, etc.
3 Evaluation of current implementation performance
Also important is that the department give an evaluation of its performance over the previous strategic planning period, and indicate how this is likely to impact on its ability to meet the targets set out in the strategic plan for the current year, and therefore what adjustments have had to be made to the performance targets in the upcoming strategic plan for the upcoming year.
Appendix two: Organisational information and the institutional environment
In 'appendix two' the department will present key information about itself and give its analysis of what in strategic planning is referred to as the 'internal environment'. The focus is thus on:
• Key organisational information on the department;
• Internal factors that are impacting on its performance; and
• Evaluating existing strategies to address challenges in the institutional environment.
As with appendix one, the information here should be compiled at the beginning of the strategic planning process, and updated as the process progresses.
The section 'Summary of organisational information and the institutional challenges' must be based on the analysis in this appendix.
1 Organisational design
This section should present the following information:
1. Organogram
2. Reporting lines of senior managers down to deputy-director level (with names)
3. Map showing organisational boundaries, e.g. health district boundaries
2 Delegations and performance agreements
The department should state to what extent management responsibilities have been delegated down the organisational structure, and whether managers have been required performance agreements that match the allocation of responsibilities.
3 Capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
1 Long term capital investment and asset management plans
This section should outline briefly (i.e. in two pages) the long-term organisational objectives the department is aiming at over the next ten and twenty years. The information in this section should cover the following:
In accordance with the PFMA fairly detailed information on the departments capital investment programme must be given:
1. What building projects are in progress, and when are they expected to be completed?
2. What new building projects are being planned, when will they commence and when will they be completed?
3. Are there any facilities whose closure or down-grading is being planned?
4. What plans are there for major refurbishing projects?
5. What is the departments maintenance backlog, and what are its plans to deal with the backlog over the MTEF period, and over five years and ten years?
6. How are the above developments expected to impact on current expenditures?
Information should also be given on the management of key moveable assets, such as plans to replace important items of medical equipment.
This section should also give details of medium term maintenance plans, focussing on the following issues:
1. What is the current state the department's capital stock? I.e. What percentage is in good, medium or bad condition?
2. How much is the department planning to spend on maintenance? And what is the split between major maintenance expenditure and routine maintenance expenditure?
3. What is the schedule for major maintenance projects?
The department should give detailed lists of assets under its control, and how its asset holding have changed over the past number of years and how they are likely to change in future.
2 Capital investment plan
This should link with the information above, giving details of the most important activities with regards to capital spending to be undertaken in the upcoming MTEF period. This would entail addressing the following questions:
• What projects will be carried forward from the previous year?
• What projects will begin construction in the current year?
• What processes are in place to plan and tender for projects in future years?
In each instance, attention will need to be given to the following questions:
• What expenditures are involved?
• Will funding be rolled-over from the previous budget, or will it be funded from the new budget or future years' budgets?
• Has provision been made in future budgets to maintain the infrastructure created by the capital investment?
• Has provision been made in the forthcoming and future budgets to commission the hospital, clinic etc as soon as it is complete, i.e. has current expenditure been adjusted?
4 Personnel
Details for this section still need to be worked out.
5 IT systems
Are there any special IT systems in place? To what extent are they being effectively used? What is the department doing to ensure that people are trained to use them?
6 Performance management system
Describe the department's performance management system. How is it functioning? Is it showing the desired results?
7 Financial management
Give details on the past three years expenditures: over/under-spending against budget, against adjusted budget, rollovers, wasteful, unauthorised expenditures, thefts and debts.
Give information on different efficiency measures: cost per bed, clinic visit, vaccine etc.
Set out what systems are in place to ensure sound financial management.
Set out what training the department intends doing in the upcoming year to improve official's financial management capacity
8 Audit queries
Give details of the past three years audit queries.
Section Four
Annual Performance Plan (3 year) linked to the MTEF
Generic Format for Provincial Departments
Departments have to update this plan together with the one-year plan and table both of these annually. This plan provides for a three-year period, linking the measurable objectives and annual targets to the 3-year MTEF period. The annual targets in this plan should be revised as one implement and conclude the first year of the three years.
This document links up from the five year strategic plan at the strategic objective level and provides for targets for each of the MTEF years. The tables in the plan provide for a five year horizon of which year one (2002/03) provide for a comparative or history, the previous year (2003/04) provide the base, the next year (2004/05) provide the budget year, while the other two years provide for the outer years of the MTEF.
In summary departments need to submit a three-year annual performance plan. This plan provides for strategic objectives, measurable objectives, performance measures and targets over the three-year period. When departments submit their first draft plan strategic plan towards the end of August (this date will vary across provinces but ultimately the first) the following two documents are required for submissions:
The five-year strategic plan as per section 3, highlighting the strategic goals and strategic objectives; and
The three-year annual performance plan linked to the MTEF providing for strategic objectives, measurable objectives, performance measures, achievements, and targets
Departments will have to provide information on the first year of the annual performance plan. It will have to provide for similar information as per the three- year annual report but will have to illustrate the quarterly performance targets and budget. This plan will have to be tabled alongside the 3 year annual performance plan.
Foreword
Having specified clear strategic goals and objectives in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan, the MEC and accounting officer need to agree on what outputs the department is required to deliver given its budget for the next financial year in pursuit of these goals and objectives.
This requires careful planning as ultimately it will determine whether the strategic goals and objectives in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan get realised. The MEC must participate in this planning and is required to sign-off on it so that the accounting officer can table the information in the legislature in compliance with section 27(4) of the PFMA.
This Annual Performance Plan also feeds into the Performance Agreement, which the accounting officer is required to sign with the executive authority of the department. The Annual Performance Plan therefore needs to reflect exactly what the executive authority wants the accounting officer to deliver on.
The MEC should also use this opportunity to fully endorse the service delivery targets set and indicate his or her commitment to supporting and ensuring the levels of service delivery specified. The MEC must be prepared to be held accountable by the provincial Executive Council, the provincial legislature and the public for the successful implementation of the Annual Performance Plan that his or her department has developed under their guidance.
XXXX (signature)
MEC for (Department)
Contents
Part A: Overview and strategic plan updates
Overview
Strategic plan update analysis
Part B: Programme and sub-programme performance targets
Programme X: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
2 Progress analysis
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
2 Progress analysis
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators
6 Sub programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
2 Progress analysis
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators
7 Reconciliation of budget with plan
Programme Y: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
2 Progress analysis
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators
6 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
7 Reconciliation of budget with plan
Implementation of the capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
Medium-term revenues
1 Summary of revenue
2 Departmental revenue collection
3 Conditional grants
4 Donor funding
Co-ordination, co-operation and outsourcing plans
1 Interdepartmental linkages
2 Local government linkages
3 Public entities
4 Public, private partnerships, outsourcing etc
Financial Management:
1 Strategies to address audit queries
2 Implementation of PFMA
Part C: Annual Performance Plan of Year- One
Part D: Analysis of changes to programmes
Part A: Overview and strategic plan updates
Overview
The accounting officer should give an executive summary of any significant shifts in policy or programmes that have taken place over the past year, and that alter the direction indicated by the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
He or she should also give an overview of the most important performance targets set out in the Annual Performance Plan. These should be the targets by which the accounting officer wants his or her performance in leading the department to be measured at the end of the year.
Strategic plan update analysis
The department should give details of any significant changes to its strategic direction as set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan – indicating what factors made the change necessary, and how the change will impact on the departments strategic goals and objectives.
If any of a department’ s strategic goals and objectives have to be changed during the government’s term of office, the department should restate the full set of strategic goals and objectives in this section, indicating exactly the nature of the changes and why they were made.
Part B
Programme and sub-programme performance targets
This part of the Annual Performance Plan is devoted to the detailed planning of outputs for the individual programmes and sub-programmes. This section should follow the same broad format of Part B of the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan. In other words if measurable objectives were specified at the programme level for a particular programme then performance targets should be set at the programme level as well. These performance targets should relate directly to the progressive realisation of the specified measurable objectives.
Programme X: (NAME)
Give a brief description of the programme and how it is structured.
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
This section should summarise the strategic objectives for the particular programme set in the department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan, or the revised objectives should they have been changed more recently.
2 Progress analysis
This section should give a brief evaluation of the progress the department has made in realising the above strategic objectives and should indicate what special measures the department intends taking over the coming financial year to ensure that the specified strategic objectives are achieved by the end of the government’s term of office.
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
This constraints analysis should relate specific measures that the department intends taking in the coming financial year to ensure its delivery plans remain on track.
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
This section should indicate what the department intends doing in the coming financial year to improve the quality of services in line with the plans set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
5 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
This section should summarise the strategic objectives for the particular sub-programme set in the department’s Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan, or the revised objectives should they have been changed more recently.
2 Progress analysis
This section should give a brief evaluation of the progress the department has made in realising the above strategic objectives and should indicate what special measures the department intends taking over the coming financial year to ensure that the specified strategic objectives are achieved by the end of the government’s term of office.
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
This constraints analysis should relate specific measures that the department intends taking in the coming financial year to ensure its delivery plans remain on track.
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
This section should indicate what the department intends doing in the coming financial year to improve the quality of services in line with the plans set out in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan.
5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators
This is the most important part of the Annual Performance Plan. Specific, measurable objectives should be formulated based on the strategic objectives identified above.
It is envisaged that the national and provincial departments in each sector will develop a minimum set of performance measures/indicators that provinces will have to produce. Managers may have objectives that call for other indicators. These indicators will form the basis for quarterly and annual reports.
Where the situation analysis in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan deals with the programme as a whole, the performance indicators can be presented for the whole programme without specifying specific measurable objectives for each sub-programme. However, in instances where situation analyses in the Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan have been done for particular sub-programmes then the performance indicators should be developed for those particular sub-programmes.
The table below gives a format for the specification of objectives and the measurement of performance. Table 1 below provide an example of how this information needs to be provided. It allows for the strategic objective, Measurable Objective, Performance Measure, base year (2003/04), estimate for the 2004/05, targets for the budget year (2005/06) and projections for the two outer years of the MTEF. Departments are encouraged to reproduce the table for each programme and sub programme. It is recommended that departments reproduce this table in landscape.
Table 13: (Sub-) Programme X.Y: (NAME) Strategic Objectives, Measurable objectives, Performance Measures indicators and targets
| | |
|Sub Programme |Strategic Goal: Manage the Traffic Directorate effectively |
|Strategic Objective |Measurable |Performance |Actual |Actual |2004/05 |2005/06Budget |2006/07 Target|2007/08 Target |
| |Objective |Measure |2002/03 |2003/04 |Estimate | | | |
| | |Indicator | | | | | | |
|1. | | | | | | | | |
|2. | | | | | | | | |
|3. | | | | | | | | |
|4. | | | | | | | | |
|Etc | | | | | | | | |
|Total programme | | | | | | | | |
1. If possible, separate tables should be made for expenditure in nominal and real terms.
2. Average annual change between year -2 and base year.
3. Projected average annual change between base year and year 3.
Programme Y: (NAME)
1 Specified policies, priorities and strategic objectives
……
2 Progress analysis
……
3 Analysis of constraints and measures planned to overcome them
……
4 Description of planned quality improvement measures
……
5 Specification of measurable objectives and performance indicators
……
6 Sub-programme X.Y: (NAME)
… …
7 Reconciliation of budget with plan
……
And so on for all the relevant programmes.
Implementation of the capital investment, maintenance and asset management plan
The Five-year Strategic and Performance Plan gives details of the departments capital and investment and maintenance plans. This section must indicate what the department intends doing in the coming financial year to implement those plans, as well as the coming two years of the MTEF.
It is proposed that departments may use the following table or one similar to report on their capital investment plans.
Table 15: New projects, upgrades and rehabilitation (R '000)*
|New projects |Actual 2002/03 |Actual 2003/04 |2004/05 Estimate |2005/06 Budget |2006/07 Target |2007/08 Target |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|etc | | | | | | |
|Total new projects | | | | | | |
|Upgrading | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
|Rehabiliation | | | | | | |
|rrrehrerehabilitation | | | | | | |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|- Project 1 | | | | | | |
|- Project 2 | | | | | | |
|etc | | | | | | |
|Total upgrading and | | | | | | |
|rehabilitation | | | | | | |
* If not funded from the provincial budget details should be presented in separate note. In addition to programme totals, individual projects at or above a value of R25m should be presented separately.
Table 16: Building maintenance (R '000)
|Maintenance |Actual 2002/03 |Actual 2003/04 |2004/05 Estimate |2005/06 Budget |2006/07 Target |2007/08 Target |
|Programme 1 | | | | | | |
|Programme 2 | | | | | | |
|Programme 3 | | | | | | |
|Etc | | | | | | |
|Total | | | | | | |
|Total as % of department | | | | | | |
|expenditure/budget | | | | | | |
Medium-term revenues
This section should give an overview of the medium term revenues and expenditures of the department.
1 Summary of revenue
The following sources of funding are used for the Vote:
Table 17: Summary of revenue: (name of department)
| |Actual 2002/03 |Actual 2003/04 |2004/05 Estimate |2005/06 Budget |2006/07 Target |2007/08 Target |
|R 000 | | | | | | |
|Voted by legislature | | | | | | |
|Conditional grants | | | | | | |
|Other (specify) | | | | | | |
|Total revenue | | | | | | |
2 Departmental revenue collection
The table below should give a summary of the revenue the department is responsible for collecting.
Departments must describe in some detail the plans they have to ensure that they will indeed be able to collect the revenue for which they are responsible.
Table 18: Departmental revenue collection: (name of department)
|R million |Actual 2002/03 |Actual 2003/04 |2004/05 Estimate|2005/06 Budget |2006/07 Target |2007/08 Target |
|Current revenue | | | | | | |
|Tax revenue | | | | | | |
|Non-tax revenue | | | | | | |
|Capital revenue | | | | | | |
|(specify) | | | | | | |
|Departmental revenue | | | | | | |
3 Conditional grants
In this section departments should show which conditional grants are available to them and how they are planning to spend these amounts.
4 Donor funding
This section should provide some detailed information, including relevant financial figures, on the use, direct or indirect, of donor funding by projects and programmes of the department. The recommended format is provided below. Note that any donor funded activity where employees of the department are involved at a management level must be referred to. The activity could be a project that is clearly owned, and mainly funded by the department, but where donors are making contributions, or the activity could be a project that is clearly run from outside the department, but where the department is participating in the management of the project, e.g. through some participatory management structure.
The one example provided in the table below should help clarify how the table is to be used. Importantly, the financial figures should not include departmental contributions, or contributions from education conditional grant funds.
Table 19: Donor funding
|Project |External |Monetary contributions by donors (R 000) |Project outcomes |Departmental |
|name |donors | | |reporting |
| | | | |responsibility |
| | |2002/03 |2004/05 |2005/06 |2006/07 MTEF |2007/08 MTEF | | |
| | |(actual) |(estimate) |(budget) |projection |projection | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
Co-ordination, co-operation and outsourcing plans
1 Interdepartmental linkages
Detail the areas where the department is jointly responsible for service delivery with another state department. It should be clearly indicated exactly what the extent of the department's responsibilities are vis-à-vis the other departments. It should also be stated what mechanisms have been put in place to ensure good co-ordination among the departments.
2 Local government linkages
Departments should give details of any service delivery agreements or arrangements they have with local authorities. This should include details of all funds that the department will be transferring to local authorities for the delivery of such services. For instance in certain provinces local authorities operate clinics for which they receive funding from health departments as well as with housing funds.
3 Public entities
Give details of all the public entities for which the department is responsible.
Table 20: Details of public entities
|Name of public entity |Main purpose of public entity |Transfers from the departmental budget |
| | |2005/06 (budget)|2006/07 MTEF |2007/08 MTEF |
| | | |projection |projection |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
4 Public, private partnerships, outsourcing etc
Give details of the range and value of public private partnerships, outsourcing, and transfers to NGO’s etc
Financial Management:
1 Strategies to address audit queries
Auditor-general reports are available to departments within three months of the end of the financial year. This means that departments should be able to address most of the queries raised in such reports in the current financial year. However, the auditor-general may raise certain issues that require a medium term strategy to address. The department should identify these issues and detail the strategy they are currently following and going to follow in the upcoming financial year to resolve them
2 Implementation of PFMA
The department should detail its plan to progressively strengthen its ability to comply with the PFMA.
Part C: Annual Performance Plan of Year- One
This section of the Annual performance plan provide for similar information as contained with regards to the performance of programmes and sub programmes and relate directly to the performance and Budget for the first year of the Annual Performance Plan. This part of the plan will form the basis of the department’s performance and the annual report for the first year of the three annual performance plan. It provides for the budget, strategic objectives, measurable objectives, performance measures, achievements and quarterly targets for the first year of the Annual Performance Plan.
The attached table provide for insight on how this should be provided:
| | |
|Sub Programme |Strategic Goal: Manage the Traffic Directorate effectively |
|Strategic Objective |
As regards the current round of strategic planning Chapter 5 of the Treasury Regulations for departments, constitutional institutions and trading entities (issued on 31 May 2000) are particularly important. The following tables presents what is required as far as strategic plans are concerned.
Table 22: Treasury regulations on strategic planning
|5. Strategic planning |
| |
|5.1 Annual preparation of strategic plans |
|Each year, the accounting officer of an institution must prepare a strategic plan for the forthcoming MTEF period for approval by the |
|relevant executive authority. |
| |
|5.2 Submission and contents of strategic plans |
|In order to facilitate the discussion of individual votes, the approved strategic plan must be tabled in Parliament or the relevant |
|legislature at least 7 days prior to the discussion of the department’s budget vote. |
| |
|5.2.2 The strategic plan must – |
|(a) Cover a period of three years and be consistent with the institution’s published medium term expenditure estimates; |
|(b) Include specific Constitutional and other legislative, functional and policy mandates that indicate the output deliverables for |
|which the institution is responsible; |
|(c) Include policy developments and legislative changes that influence programme spending plans over the three-year period; |
|(d) Include the measurable objectives, expected outcomes, programme outputs, indicators (measures) and targets of the institution’s |
|programmes; |
|(e) Include details of proposed acquisitions of fixed or movable capital assets, planned capital investments and rehabilitation and |
|maintenance of physical assets; |
|(f) Include details of proposed acquisitions of financial assets or capital transfers and plans for the management of financial assets|
|and liabilities; |
|(g) Include multi-year projections of income and projected receipts from the sale of assets; |
|(h) Include details of the Service Delivery Improvement Programme; |
|(i) Include details of proposed information technology acquisition or expansion in reference to an information technology plan; and |
|(j) For departments, include the requirements of Chapter 1, Part III B of the Public Service Regulations, 2001. |
|The strategic plan must form the basis for the annual reports of accounting officers as required by sections 40(1)(d) and (e) of the |
|Act. |
| |
|5.3 Evaluation of performance [Section 27(4) read with 36(5) of the PFMA] |
|5.3.1 The accounting officer of an institution must establish procedures for quarterly reporting to the executive authority to |
|facilitate effective performance monitoring, evaluation and corrective action. |
These Treasury regulations require strategic plans comply with Chapter 1, Part III B of the Public Service Regulations, 1999, and also include information on the Service Delivery Improvement Plan. This information is presented in the tables below:
Table 23: Strategic planning in the Public Service Regulations
|Chapter 1 - Part III: B. STRATEGIC PLANNING |
|B.1 An executing authority shall prepare a strategic plan for her or his department - |
|(a) Stating the department’s core objectives, based on Constitutional and other legislative mandates, functional mandates and the |
|service delivery improvement programme mentioned in regulation III C; |
|(b) Describing the core and support activities necessary to achieve the core objectives, avoiding duplication of functions; |
|(c) Specifying the functions the department will perform internally and those it will contract out; |
|(d) Describing the goals or targets to be attained on the medium term; |
|(e) Setting out a programme for attaining those goals and targets; |
|(f) Specifying information systems that- |
|(i) Enable the executing authority to monitor the progress made towards achieving those goals, targets and core objectives; |
|(ii) Support compliance with the reporting requirements in regulation III J and the National Minimum Information Requirements, |
|referred to in regulation VII H; and |
|(g) Complying with the requirements in paragraphs 5.1 and 5.2 of the Treasury Regulations. |
|B.2 Based on the strategic plan of the department, an executing authority shall- |
|(a) Determine the department’s organisational structure in terms of its core and support functions; |
|(b) Grade proposed new jobs according to the job evaluation system referred to in Part IV; |
|(c) Define the posts necessary to perform the relevant functions while remaining within the current budget and medium-term expenditure|
|framework of her or his department, and the posts so defined shall constitute the department’s approved establishment; and |
|(d) Engage in the human resource planning in accordance with regulation III D with a view to meeting the resulting human resource |
|needs. |
|B.3 In implementing the strategic plan, a head of department shall- |
|(a) Promote the efficient, economic and effective use of resources as to improve the functioning of the department; and |
|(b) To that end, apply working methods such as the re-allocation, simplification and co-ordination of work, and eliminate unnecessary |
|functions. |
Table 24: Requirements of the Service Delivery Improvement Programme
|Chapter 1 - Part III: C. SERVICE DELIVERY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME |
| |
|C.1 An executing authority shall establish and sustain a service delivery improvement programme for her or his department- |
|(a) Specifying the main services to be provided to the different types of actual and potential customers, as identified by the |
|department; |
|(b) Containing consultation arrangements with the department’s actual and potential customers; |
|(c) With due regard to the customer’s means of access to the services and the barriers to increased access thereof, specifying the |
|mechanisms or strategies to be utilised progressively to remove the barriers so that access to services is increased; |
|(d) Indicating standards for the main services to be provided; |
|(e) Containing arrangements as to how information about the department’s services are to be provided; and |
|(f) Stipulating a system or mechanisms for complaints. |
| |
|C.2 An executing authority shall publish an annual statement of public service commitment which will set out the department’s service |
|standards that citizens and customers can expect and which will serve to explain how the department will meet each of the standards. |
Lastly, the Guidelines for Accounting Officers sets out in some detail what should be included in 'operational plans', as reported in the following table.
Table 25: Requirements of operational plans
|Operational Plans |
|The first year of the strategic plan is known as the operational plan. It must provide a sufficiently detailed quantification of |
|outputs and resources, together with service delivery indicators, for the legislature to understand exactly what it is ‘buying’ for |
|the community when it approves the budget. The operational plan must not be a wish list, but must be flexible and adjustable while |
|remaining within the MTEF allocation. The plan must contain: |
|• Descriptions of the various programmes that the department will pursue to achieve its objectives, and for each programme, the |
|measurable objectives, total cost and intended lifespan |
|• Information on any conditional grants to be paid or received, including the criteria to be satisfied |
|• Information on any new programmes to be implemented, including the justification for such programmes, expected costs, staffing and |
|new capital, as well as future implications |
|• Information on any programmes to be scaled down or discontinued during the financial year |
|• Where two or more departments contribute to the delivery of the same service, a concise summary of the contribution of each |
|department (the accounting officers must ensure that the summaries included in their respective plans are consistent) |
|• Summary information, drawn from the strategic plan, of all capital investments planned for the year, Including the future impact on|
|the operating budget (this information should be rolled forward, amended as appropriate, to the next year’s strategic plan) |
Annexure Two: Infrastructure Planning
National Treasury has undertaken further initiatives after its infrastructure review, to ensure that all government departments and entities improve infrastructure planning and management capacity. This involved the development of a framework for the improvement of infrastructure delivery management. This delivery framework, referred to as the Infrastructure Delivery Management Toolkit, has been developed by the National Treasury with in collaboration with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB). The framework aims to improve the infrastructure delivery processes, with emphasis on proper infrastructure planning, linked to the proper asset management systems.
A key component of department strategic plan is its infrastructure plan. Infrastructure planning is undertaken in parallel with the development of strategic plan and they must fully align. The Toolkit provides a detail guidance and a format on how a department can put together an infrastructure plan that supports the department’s overall service delivery. This plan should determine what infrastructure is to be provided, when it is to be provided and at what cost. The infrastructure planning guidelines encourages consideration a long-term view to the development and operation of infrastructure given that its lifespan run for ten year and more. It also supports a planning process that addresses both capital and operational costs – the total project life cycle costs.
The infrastructure plan should also indicate the organisational and support plan, which outlines the human resources, and systems (reporting and control) required the manage and implement the infrastructure programme.
Departments need to consider the infrastructure planning guidelines and the format for the infrastructure plan herewith attached as Annexure Two (1) (Module 2, Infrastructure Planning) and Annexure Two (2) (2T01, Template and guidance for the preparation of Infrastructure Plan and Supporting Organisation and Support Plan). The format for the plan provides guidance on how to compile the infrastructure plan tables in the infrastructure Planning guideline (Annexure Two (3) should be used to compile the financial estimates for the projects as required in the infrastructure plan format. This should be a working table, showing information for each project, and should not be part of public information to be presented in the strategic plan. The strategic plan should provide a high level summary per major project cost categories as follows:
• New construction (including upgrading)
• Rehabilitation (refurbishment)
• Maintenance
• Disposal
These should be summarised for 5 to 10 year cost estimates as illustrated by table XX. These tables will be presented for prioritised projects for the MTEF as illustrated in the budget structure.
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