Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs
Compliance monitoring
in the Department of Home Affairs
30 April 2013
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Content of the presentation
•
Compliance monitoring in the Department of Home Affairs
•
The vision, purpose and objectives of M & E in the Department
•
M & E Capacity
•
Internal M & E processes
•
Monitoring of Strategic and Annual Performance Plans
•
Types of reporting in the Department
•
Reporting at Quarterly Review meetings
• Compliance monitoring tool for external reporting
• Governance structures that receive performance reports
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Compliance monitoring in the Department of Home Affairs
• The monitoring of compliance is most importantly against the Treasury
Guidelines on planning, financial management and reporting. The
guidelines indicate or prescribe, amongst others:

The planning, budgeting and reporting cycle and process;

Standards for drafting targets and indicators and financial
management;

The structure and content of key documents (Strategic Plan. Annual
Performance Plan (APP), Estimate of National Expenditure (ENE)
and Annual Reports by which the DHA is held accountable.
• The Department works closely with the Auditor Generals team to improve
the level of compliance to key standards.
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Performance monitoring: Response to audit findings
Response to the 2011 – 2012 audit and input from the Portfolio Committee:
 Poorly formulated targets and indicators were improved through
submitting an errata document.
The auditors were asked to review targets and indicators in the 2012- 2013
Annual Performance Plan (APP) so any serious issues could be addressed.
 The auditors concluded that the targets and indicators would meet
prescribed standards provided that the indicator description sheets dealt
with the technical issues they raised.
 The Department plans to work closely the auditors to ensure that there is
agreement on the nature and format of evidence they require for each
target.
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Monitoring and evaluation capacity in the Department
• The Chief Directorate is situated in the office of the DirectorGeneral and includes Policy, Planning and M & E units.
• Branches and provinces have persons (nodal points) who
coordinate M&E as one of their duties.
• Nodal points are briefed regularly and short courses on M & E
have been provided that were also attended by managers.
• An M & E road-show was taken to the provinces.
• A project has been initiated to strengthen M & E functions.
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Vision
The vision of monitoring and evaluation:
1. To evaluate and communicate continuous performance so as to entrench a
performance culture in the Department.
2. To monitor as to how effectively and efficiently the DHA executes its mandate to
satisfy public demands (to achieve operational efficiencies by monitoring
performance).
3. To evaluate impact of policy and strategy implementation.
The purpose of Monitoring and Evaluation:
1. To provide information that will be used to analyse and manage strategic
objectives and key operational areas; and to improve the performance of the
organisation and individual business units.
2. To enhance accountability and transparency of DHA operations.
3. Provide accurate and reliable information to all the relevant stakeholders.
4. To enhance performance and evidence based budgeting , planning and policy
development.
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Objectives of M & E
1.
To track and evaluate organisational performance across the
whole organisation
2.
To align the DHA M&E system with government initiatives
3.
To monitor the cascading of policy and strategy to business
and operational level and monitoring of the execution of
strategy through various business levels
4.
To align operational metrics to the DHA’s annual performance
plans and ultimately to the over-arching strategy.
5.
To provide management information to support external and
internal purposes (including non regulatory reporting)
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Monitoring of strategic plans
• The planned strategic outputs are broken down into business
and operational plans through the departmental planning
process: 3 year Annual Performance Planning.
• Managers are accountable for accurate and timeous
reporting on the targets in their plans.
• All managers (DDGs, chief directors and directors) therefore
make internal arrangements in their areas of responsibility
regarding the due date for monthly and quarterly reporting.
• The norm is that all reports must be submitted to the M&E
team on or before the 7th of every month and 10 working
days subsequent to the end of a particular quarter.
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Types of reporting in the Department
Internal Monitoring
•
Mandatory internal reporting in DHA combines both the financial and nonfinancial performance information. Reports are be based on progress on
achievement of targets set out in the APP.
 Monthly performance reports on Project plans including project expenditure
should be submitted to the Steering Committee of a project. Expenditure reports
are submitted to top management meetings and the external Audit Committee.
 Quarterly and Mid-year performance reports outlining progress on the APP
quarterly targets are submitted to the M & E unit and discussed at Quarterly
Review meetings and key management meetings.
 The Internal Audit unit monitors and reports on the implementation of audit
recommendations.
 The Risk Management unit monitors the implementation of the Risk Action Plan
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Types of reporting in the Department (continued)
External Monitoring
• Mandatory external reporting by DHA includes reporting to National
Treasury, Presidency (Department of Performance Monitoring and
Evaluation), Auditor General’s Office and Parliament

Quarterly Performance Reports (financial) to the Minister and
National Treasury;

Mid-Year Performance Reports (consolidated from quarters) to the
Minister on the APP targets and finances; and

Annual Report (financial and non-financial) to the Minister,
Parliament and Office of the Auditor-General focusing on the APP
targets for the financial year.
The DHA ensures that all quarterly reports are compiled and submitted to
relevant stakeholders after the end of each quarter; as well as reports to the
DPSA, PSC, DPME, various clusters and other bodies.
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Reporting at Quarterly Review Meetings
• The reporting programme has been aligned to the organizational structure
of the Department.
 The emphasis of reporting is placed on core business with
presentations from Civic Services (CS) and Immigration Services (IMS).
Civic Services presents a consolidated presentation for the provinces in
addition to a head office presentation.
 Core business is also be requested to identify key strategic and
operational issues for discussion at the review. This will necessitate a
meeting between the DDG and provincial managers beforehand.
 For other business units the emphasis is on support rendered to core
business. The CFO always provides a report on financial management.

Representatives of frontline staff attend quarterly reviews so that they
can contribute to discussion of reasons for success or failure. All
managers present are supposed to take information back to their staff.
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Compliance monitoring tool for external reporting
• Chief Directorate: Policy and Strategic Management
developed a compliance monitoring tool (draft hardcopy
available). It will be soon be implemented to track compliance
with external reporting requirements.
The reporting process:

Reports to be categorised according to deadlines.

DG will get weekly/monthly report on reporting requirements
due in that particular month two/three weeks in advance
depending on sign off delegation.

Reports on compliance and the quality of reports to be
discussed at ExCo.

Business units compile and submit report to relevant external
holders and copy to M&E to archive as a resource.
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Key DHA governance structures that receive reports
• Branch management meetings
• Quarterly Performance Review meetings
• Executive Committee (ExCo) meetings
• Minister’s Management Meeting (MMM)
• Department Management Meeting (CDs and up)
• Audit Steering Committee meetings
• External Audit Committee meetings
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THANK YOU
Questions?
Comments?
Suggestions?
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