ISSUE 2

Formation of the South African State IT Agency - A Case Study

1. Background

The government that was elected in 1994 inherited 13 administrations including 4 provincial, so-called independent (4) and self-governing (4) states. In many cases the central administration of the government of South Africa had different departments in one portfolio area for the different race groups. Each of these administrations had their own different IT infrastructure as they were not necessarily meant to share information. After the 1994 elections these administrations were amalgamated, but the systems they were using continued to be used until in some cases these were rationalised.

There were different platforms, systems and networks. South Africa currently has about 16 Wide Area Networks (WANs).

2. The IT Challenges

Besides the expected problems given the background, the following problems became even more pronounced:

• Government was finding it difficult to recruit and retain suitable IT skilled personnel (No appropriate career paths for IT personnel, and inflexible remuneration)
  
  
• Government was, as a result, relying more and more on consultants without enough skilled people to manage the consultants and the consultants were consequently managing themselves. There were no Service Level Agreements with consultants.
  
  
• Government IT spending was not in support of the broad government and the departments' business objectives as highlighted by:
  
  
  • a proliferation of Wide Area Networks without the requisite skills
    
    
  • a lack of standards or adherence to standards and policies on IT and a difficulty experienced by people from previously disadvantaged communities in getting contracts from government or employment in the area of IT.
    
    
• The IT function was therefore not able to support Government policies
  
  
• IT policies and expenditures were not supportive of Public Service Transformation and Delivery.

3. The Solution

The Government decided that a solution that would address the needs of the IT personnel, the Government departments and Government as a whole, should be found.

After the investigations were carried out, it was decided that a company with the Government as a sole shareholder and client would provide a best fit given the needs. This company partner the private sector in providing solutions to the Public Service, as encouraged in the White Paper on Public Service Transformation.

How would this work?

The following process would be followed:

• A department signs a business agreement with the agency, identifying the IT functions to be performed by the Agency. This would in turn be supported by Service Level Agreements between a department and the Agency.
  
  
• A department's IT division is transferred to the agency, including the concomitant resources like personnel and assets. This is in line with a Cabinet decision that when a function is transferred between any departments, the concomitant resources must also be transferred.
  
  
• Where a department wants to procure a system, it would discuss the business needs with the Agency. The agency would on prepare requirements or specifications and procure such a system from the private sector on behalf of the department whilst taking responsibility for the whole procurement management cycle, including costs and quality assurance.

4. What are the Benefits?

The following are the main envisaged beneficiaries and the reasons are detailed below:

• Departments
• IT Personnel
• the Government

4.1 Benefits to the Departments

The following benefits are realisable:

• The department does not have to worry about recruitment and retention of appropriate personnel.
  
  
• The department only concentrates on its core (line) functions and does not worry about the changing technologies whilst the agency takes responsibility for the deployment of appropriate technologies to address the business needs.
  
  
• The department only pays for services, which are controlled by Service Level Agreements.
  
  
• The department can now afford previously expensive skills as it would not employ consultants for longer than they are required.

4.2 Benefits to the IT Personnel

The following benefits are realisable:

• Opportunities for better career paths and development in an agency (approx. 2000 IT staff) whose sole function is providing IT related services to government.
  
  
• Opportunities for flexible remuneration and to be financially rewarded for performance.

4.3 Benefits to the Government

These are for the government as a whole:

• Better understanding of how much the government is spending on IT.
  
  
• Opportunities to benefit from the economies of scale on hardware purchases and software licences among others.
  
  
• Opportunities for Infrastructure Rationalisation
  
  
• Better opportunities to benefit from Private-Public partnerships and Privately Funded Initiatives
  
  
• Opportunity to develop an IT Centre of Excellence for the Government
  
  
• Ensuring that whatever framework of standards and norms is developed, this is then adhered to and thus making opportunities to address Information Sharing which will help the government in achieving the single-window Paradigm of Public Service Delivery.
  
  
• Leading to definite reduction in traditional service delivery channels, whilst deploying more cost-effective IT-based delivery channels, thus leading to cost savings and efficiency.

5. Conclusion

Other main challenges that our government faces are in the Constitution:

• Information Access for Citizens
  
  
• Improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Public Administration

The Department of Public Service and Administration is finalising the development of an Information Architecture Framework (IAF) and will be starting with the development of an IT/IM Strategy for the Public Service. The Information Architecture will give us a framework of norms & standards, building blocks and an indication of how we can use the different information delivery channels to enhance service delivery.

The Strategy will address current and future information and technology needs. It will also define the information management and information technology vision of the government. It will also address organisational, human and financial resources that are required to get us there.

Given the challenges we are positive the Internet, web-based technologies and Call-centre technologies will play a big role in the way we address information-based service delivery. The proliferation of databases that are not linked to each other whilst they should be logically connected suggests that we should look at relevant and logical consolidation of these. This means we have to look at how we can use datawarehousing and Decision Support Systems. We will also be looking at using Knowledge Retention enhancing systems and methodologies to improve the performance of the Public Service. We will also be using different technologies for our service delivery channels.