Public Service and Administration Minister Collins Chabane says the public sector must challenge itself to be creative and embrace innovation as a new way of doing government business more smartly.

Speaking at the Centre for Public Service Conference at the Westin Hotel in Cape Town, the minister said this was because the public service needed to move to a space where crucial government deliverables such as education, health, provision of water and sanitation, among others, are done more effectively, efficiently and quicker.

He said government must also change its mindset and move away from daily routine and try to rid itself of the “fear” of new ideas, as this was an obstacle that hindered public servants from improving service delivery.

“Innovation enables us to stretch ourselves, and to think beyond the borders of our mandates to find integrated innovative solutions – be they prototypes, processes, improving management systems, better organisational structures, ICT and non-ICT gadgets,” said the minister.

He said the conference, under the theme “Building an innovative state machinery for maximised service delivery impact”, was aimed at helping government serve its citizens with diligence and interrogate the challenges standing in the way of excellence.

 

Doing away with the old

Currently, the public service machinery employs about 1.3 million people around the country.

Chabane said embracing innovation would help the public service to do away with old and often less effective practices.

“Around the world, other governments are leveraging ICT to excel in service delivery. While we understand that ICT is complex and diverse, its potential must be fully utilised and mainstreamed as a tool to build, empower and benefit the country,” he said.

 

Public servants need to be challenged

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said public servants need to be challenged into believing in analytical thinking to break the barriers of innovation.

She added that performance agreements of all public servants also needed to be altered to include an aspect of innovation as a new area of delivery.

“What we think of service needs to change… I often look at our performance agreements and what they have in them. I think it is only the performance agreement of the Director-General of Science and Technology that has a requirement for innovation,” she said.

Pandor said some public servants often blocked innovation in fear that they would lose their jobs. She gave an example of how the most frequently asked question when she was the Minister for Home Affairs, was how the introduction of smart ID cards would affect people’s jobs.

 

(SAnews.gov.za)