A Systematic Approach

Andrew Layman:  PCB CEO

Professor Jake Chapman, an academic at the Open University in the UK for thirty-one years, is a specialist in energy – research, policy and its use in housing.     He also became an authoritative commentator on government’s ability to fulfil the expectations of the British people, especially in such spheres as health and education.   He is a forthright proponent of a systemic approach in the way that government goes about its business – but his counsel appears to have fallen on deaf ears.  In a paper titled: “System Failure: Why governments must learn to think differently” and written in 2002, he advocated an holistic approach to the provision of public service rather than the traditional reductionist model which is characterised by simple mechanistic and linear frameworks as reflected in the hierarchical organogram.    “One can ‘deliver’ a parcel or a pizza,” he wrote, “but not health or education.”

Our government’s solution to the education crisis is to introduce more straight lines of accountability.    This is based on the perceived link between measurement and monitoring.   The Minister of Basic Education’s achievement target is quantitative, as if the attainment of a certain number carries with it the achievement of quality.  In matters of health, too, it’s all about budgets and salaries and numbers of surgical procedures, and very little about quality and the satisfaction of the people who are the clients of the public service.    Indeed, have these clients had sufficient opportunity to ever express what would satisfy them?    In the UK, the level of dissatisfaction regarding the NHS seems to be constant in perpetuity, despite succeeding governments’ plans and promises.   They too, have tried to improve the system by reducing it to numbers.   The imitation by government of business practices is often inappropriate, in my view, especially in this area of quantitative goals.   Successful business is profitable and profit is a bottom-line figure and for this reason it is easy to understand why measurement became so important.   Now, however, as markets become more complex and global consciences change, Business is realising that there are other issues that warrant evaluation and assessment rather than plain measurement.   

My particular concern is local government and its abject failures in so many spheres.   In a certain way, the democratic constitution established a local government regimen which reflects systems thinking.    The municipality is expected to be at the heart of communities, promoting welfare, upliftment and progress and doing all these things in a manner which reflects synergy between the public service and the people’s expectations.    Consultation is statutory.   But, like it or not, municipalities are viewed as mechanisms for delivery, as they were in the pre-democratic era.   They are judged by government in terms of how many indigent households have been provided with basic services and, in consequence, perhaps, they have organised themselves into traditional  bureaucracies with lines of authority and all the weaknesses of departmentalism in consequence.   This has been encouraged by legislation which focuses on compliance and order.    The heart has been excised and the body cannot function properly.    Such has been the failure of the consultation process that activists have either formed ratepayer associations (which really shouldn’t be necessary where ward committees are mandatory and costly) or staged violent demonstrations to get someone to take heed of their needs.

The reality is that even the delivery of electricity and water has become too complex in South African society to entrust it to rote officials.    Universal and consistent efficiency would help, but it is not enough on its own.   The theft of electricity and water, a culture of non-payment, the effects of urban migration, unemployment, the consequences of food insecurity and fragile health all introduce a dimension into local government that it is simply not equipped to deal with.   A far more rounded harmony between politicians and officials would help, for many of the shortcomings relate to the fractures evident between national party policies, party caucuses, elected representatives and officials, even despite their deployment to safeguard party objectives.  

If it is difficult, therefore, for municipalities to attend satisfactorily to the basic delivery of services, how close to being impossible is it for them to address the demands of local economic development, with which they have also been tasked?    Like health and education, local economic development cannot be delivered.   It is a complex process requiring an holistic and systemic solution.   Structures designed for delivery and populated by officials who have exactly that mindset cannot facilitate LED.  A new order is required, but I don’t hold out much hope.   The turnaround strategies for municipalities will be similar, I guess – more of the same, but managed more efficiently.    

Leave a Comment