LGSETA Sector Skills Plan 2005 - 2010

LGSETA Sector Skills Plan2005 - 2010

Presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee

20 February 2007

Workshop Purpose and Background:

• In October 2006 the LGSETA, during its presentation to the Select Committee on Local Government was requested by the committee to conduct a workshop with Parliamentarians on the LGSETAs updated Sector Skills Plan from 2005 to 2010

• The objective of the workshop is to provide the Parliamentarians with an in-depth understanding of the LGSETA Sector Skills plan which includes an analysis of the labour market within the sector and projections of skills need and scarce skill areas

• The following presentation provides an overview of the LGSETA and of the Sector Skills Plan.

LGSETA STAKEHOLDERS• SAMWU

• IMATU

• SALGA

• DPLG

LGSETA STRATEGIC ORIENTATION

THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORKSkills Dev Act

Labour Relations ActLGSETA Constitution

Skills Levy ActSAQA Act

PFMA Schedule 3Municipal Structures ActMunicipal Systems Act

Municipal Finance Mgt ActOther Local Govt Acts

THE NATIONAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

(NSDSII) National Targets to 2010

BUSINESS PLAN ANNUAL

(April- March)Service Level Agreements

(SLA)

LGSETA Targets(Annual)

SECTOR SKILLS PLAN (SSP)

Long-Term

Strategy

Organizational Capacity

STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK FOR EFFECTIVE BUSINESS PLANNING

& ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Key programmes / projects

SSP Review: Key Sector Needs

STRATEGIC PROJECTS

Municipal FinanceABET

SDF training, etc

DeliveryQuality Training

Increased Capacity

Priority Learning & skills programme

implementation

Priority Qualifications and learnerships developed

Increase quality & quantity of workplace participation

Quality Assurance

Internal Policies and Systems

Governance Marketing & Communication

Provincial Capacity

Background:

• 23 ( Sectoral Education and Training Authority) SETAs each with responsibility for a particular economic sector as defined by the SIC code ( standard industrial classification code)

• The LGSETAs scope of coverage is as follows:• 50493 -Any utility or agency, wholly or partially owned by a municipality

providing local government services under contractors or municipality• 91201-All functions, services and facilities provided by a metropolitan council

as determined by 84(1);(2) and (3) of Act 117 of 1998 – Local Government Municipal Structure Act of 1998.

• 91202 -Category B municipalities: All functions, services and facilities provided by a local council as determined by 84(1), (2) and(3) of Act 117 of 1998.

• 91203 -All functions, services and facilities provided by a district council and District Area management as determined by 84(1);(2) and (3) of Act 117 of 1998 – Local Government Municipal Structure Act of 1998.

• 91204 -Organized local government – any statutory or regulatory body assigned the function as per the Constitution of the RSA to deal with matters at Executive level within local government.

• A minimum of 50% of all skills funding flows back to employers via mandatory grants – discretionary funds available to SETAs to drive sectoral initiatives are limited to 20% of skills levy income.

•I.t.o the Skills Levies Act each employer is obliged to pay 1% of payroll to SARS for allocation to the various SETAs

• Skills development while guided by national policy and by SETAs, must be driven by individual employers.

•Every employer in the local government sector is obliged to submit a workplace skills plan ( WSP) and training report to the LGSETA, and to appoint a Skills Development Facilitator ( SDF) and to establish a training committee

•Upon submission and approval of the WSP the employer becomes eligible for 50% of the levy paid, plus further funding from the LGSETA discretionary grant and possible support from the National Skills Fund.

•Each SETA is responsible for ensuring the implementation of the National Skills Development Strategy ( NSDS) within their sector, and to identify key skills development interventions which will respond to government directives and policy imperatives and sectoral needs.

•The key points in the current NSDS are:

VISION

Skills for sustainable growth development and Equity

MISSION

The NSDS contributes to sustainable development of skills and equity of Skills development institutions by aligning their work and resources to the Skills needs for effective delivery and implementation

INDICATOR

Government and its Social Partners assesses the contribution of the NSDS institutions and resources to the nationally agreed strategies for growth, development and equity

PRINCIPLES

Support Economic Growth for employment creation and Poverty Alleviation

Promote Productive Citizenship for all by aligning Skills Development with National initiatives

Accelerate BEE & employment equity ( 85% black.54% women 4% disabled)

Monitor and evaluate quality and the quality assurance systems necessary for the NSDS

Advance the Culture of excellence in Skills development and Lifelong learning

Functions of SETAs• The Local Government SETA, in terms of the Skills

Development Act is obliged to:

– disburse skills levies to the sector ( by way of mandatory and discretionary grants)

– monitor the implementation of training in the sector– receive and evaluate workplace skills plans– quality assure training in the sector– develop and oversee the implementation of learnerships

– develop a sector skills plan and establish skills priorities for the sector

Sector Skills Plan

• The Sector Skills Plan ( SSP ) is an anlysis of the labour market and labour market trends within the sector, profiles and the identification of scarce skills within the sector

• It is a stakeholder based document• It is developed according to general criteria and in a format

prescribed by the Dept of Labour• The SSP is the strategic planning tool which ought to be guiding all

skills interventions in the sector• It is developed to cover a five year cycle, but is subject to annual

review• Must be endorsed by DPLG before submission to the Dept of

Labour

SSP Research Process and data sources

• The SSP document is based upon :

a sector review conducted by the LGSETA during 2003/4

an annual analysis of the WSPs received from the sector

an annual scarce skills survey

targeted focus research

annual provincial scarce skills workshops and provincial research

data from the Demarcation Board, National Treasury etc

secondary sources and reviews

Sector Skills Plan Findings:

• Legislation and policy imperatives are the main drivers of skills need

within the sector

• Introduction of new legislation frequently results in high levels of

demand for particular skills which cannot be met by the available

pool of skills in the labour market, e.g. the Municipal Property Rates

Act requirement for certified property valuers

• Just as the implementation of legislation should be costed in

financial terms, so should legislation and policy be ‘ costed’ in terms

of skill requirements.

• Staffing structures and organograms within local authorities are generally not linked to municipal functions and service delivery demands

• The large scale restructuring of municipalities post – 2000 not only led to geographic and functional change, but to large scale organisational change

• This resulted in a considerable mismatch between people occupying positions and the actual skill requirements of those positions

• This has resulted in the need for a comprehensive skills audit within the sector

Sector Skills Plan Findings cont.

• Very limited capacity within human resource departments within local authorities

• HR focus within local authorities tends to focus on issues of remuneration and industrial relations

• Job descriptions are often very poorly designed or non existent. Performance management is poorly implemented

• Human resource development and planning, and skills development planning are viewed as being secondary to other hr issues

( generally disciplinary in nature)• Skills Development Facillitators are often junior members of the HR

Dept, poorly capacitated and lack authority• SDF is not viewed as being part of a strategic planning team


• Although DPLG is now beginning to regulate minimum levels of competence required for senior or key posts within municipalities there are no established norms for the sector

• Level and concentration of skill required differs according to the type of municipality and its functions, and also the type of municipality

( e.g. rural or urban etc) and the nature of the community it serves.• There are few clear service delivery standards for municipalities –

as a result staffing norms remain arbitrary or based on ‘ experience’ • Need for ‘ rule of thumb’ guidelines to be established to assist

municipalities with staffing structures, numbers of staff, levels of staff e.g. proportions of skilled workers to professionals etc


• The sector has unacceptably high vacancy rates ( in approved i.e funded posts ) ranging at between an average of 35 – 38%.

• Despite the restriction of the salary budget to 35% of operational expenditure, municipalities underspend on their salary budgets

• The highest proportion of vacant posts are in less skilled positions i.e elementary and clerical workers. This is not attributable to skills scarcity.

• The sector can probably absorb another 20 000 – 30 000 employees immediately without undue financial strain.

• According to the Demarcation Board sector currently operates with a ratio of 1: 2 138 households.


• According to the Demarcation Board sector currently operates with a ratio of 1: 2 138 households.

• The above is an average which conceals a wide variation from approximately 1: 200 for metros and 1 : 9 000 for some more rural areas

• The capacity to deliver services adequately in these circumstances must be questioned.

• The restriction of the municipal salary budget to 35% of operational budget is perhaps unwise.

• Comparable service oriented sectors like for eg health operate on salary budgets of about 54%

• Yet underspending on the current salary budget makes it difficult to argue in favour of increasing the salary budget


• Municipalities operate as a system – given the high vacancy rates at all levels, it’s a mistake to focus on high level scarce skills to the exclusion of elementary occupations

• An engineer cannot deliver services without the immediate assistance of general workers and labourers, artisans and technicians etc.

• Even if the skills are present in the market, there is no necessary imperative for the sector to employ them in the absence of staffing norms. The need for skills does not necessarily translate into a demand for skills.


• There are high levels of staff turn over in the sector – resignations, retirement and death and medical reasons.

• Local government is not generally viewed as an employer of first choice particularly for professionals

• There has been a decline in qualifications profile in relation to higher level qualifications within the sector

• The skills outflow, linked to the declining qualifications profile implies that those leaving the sector are not being replaced by people of comparable calibre.

• The ability to do a job is not just dependent upon qualifications, but is to a large degree dependent upon experience


SECTOR PROFILE• 28% of employees in the sector are women• 2% of employees are people with disabilities – clustered in lower

level jobs• 43% of employees in the sector have NQF 1 qualification or below –

this means that they are severely limited in terms of training and career pathing options

• 5% of councillors only have a primary school qualification (NQF 1)• 32% of councillors declared themselves to be in need of adult basic

education• 45% of councillors have a secondary school qualification( NQF 3 )• 49% of councillors have some form of tertiary qualification

• The LGSETA scope of coverage includes traditional leaders and leadership institutions

• The LGSETA recently embarked on an extensive programme to establish the level of skill of traditional leaders, and to establish what traditional leaders themselves considered to be their priority training needs.

• Workshops were held in the seven provinces with provincial houses of traditional leaders

• The LGSETA has identified an immediate need among traditional leaders in both LED and Community Development. Materials are being adapted accordingly and training will commence in June.

• Other needs identified were project management, financial management and administration among others.

SECTOR PROFILE cont.

• Currently fairly large amounts of training take place within the sector, but the bulk of it is badly planned, ad hoc and seldom related to key municipal performance areas.

• To counteract this to a limited degree, the LGSETA has adopted the following as key priority areas for discretionary grant funded activities:

– Infrastructure and service delivery– Financial viability– Community participation and planning– Management and leadership– ( ABET)

• ABET remains a fundamental priority area as it defines an employees ability to access further education and training opportunities, and career pathing.

• Most of the training in the sector is currently outsourced at considerable expense as the workplace training systems in local government remain weak.


• To counteract some of the weaknesses in the training in the local government sector emphasis should be placed on regenerating local government internal training capacity particularly in relation to workplace training – both artisanal and administration

• Training should be better co-ordinated and planned within individual municipalities, and also between districts and municipalities

• Training in the sector must be focussed on service delivery needs• Greater attention should be paid to streamlining training within local

government and the public service I.e across all spheres of government

• Compliance by municipalities with the skills development legislation must be ensured through partnerships with all stakeholders as SETAs have limited powers of enforcement.


THANK YOU

Documents

LGSETA Sector Skills Plan 2005 - 2010