Lekwa Local Municipality 2013/14 - Co-operative Governance and ...

CHAPTER SIX6 PERFOMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM6.1 INTRODUCTIONLocal Government has been instrumental in delivering a step change in the quality of services that are beingprovided to its residents as well as in embracing new structures and regimes for service delivery. Key to serviceimprovement has been a greater focus on performance management, tied to the strategic vision, mission andobjectives of municipalities. In the quest for greater service improvement local government have promulgatedvarious pieces of legislation and regulations for better coordinated efforts for service delivery improvementsand the measuring thereof. This method of municipalities working closer with stakeholders to measure andmonitor continued service improvement, reinforces the importance of a robust performance managementframework, not just within the Council but also within its partner organisations to work better together. Amunicipality’s organisational priorities set out what role Council will play towards the delivering on thedevelopmental local government agenda and mandate. These Council priorities must focus on the needs of itslocal communities and must be geared towards ensuring that, in delivering services, Council focuses on itscitizens while ensuring coherent functioning, is transparent in its actions and responds to changing needs anddemands.At local government level, it has become imperative, with local economic development, transformation,governance, financial viability and service delivery being the key performance areas in terms of the localgovernment developmental agenda, to formalise the management of performance. Performancemanagement provides the mechanisms to measure whether targets that are set by municipalities to meet itsstrategic objectives are being met. National government has also found it necessary to institutionalise andprovide legislation on the performance management process for local government to further strengthen thisprocess.The Municipal Systems Act (MSA) of 2000 mandates municipalities to establish a performance managementsystem and the Planning and Performance Management Regulations of 2001 outlines the municipality’sperformance management system that must consist of a framework that describes and represents how themunicipality’s cycle and processes of performance planning, monitoring, measurement, review, reporting andimprovement will be conducted, organised and managed and to determine the roles of different stakeholders.Furthermore, the MSA and the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) of 2003 require that a five yearstrategy, the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), of a municipality must be aligned to the municipal budgetand must be monitored for implementation against the IDP through an annual Service Delivery and BudgetImplementation Plan (SDBIP). Thus there is a clear link between the IDP, the budget and the performance of amunicipality. These provisions and how the performance of managers is to be managed and how it must bealigned to the implementation of the IDP are regulated in terms of the 2006 Municipal PerformanceRegulations for Municipal Managers and Managers directly accountable to Municipal Managers.6.2 OBJECTIVES OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENTThe objective of institutionalising a performance management system beyond legislative compliancerequirements is to:(a) Facilitate increased accountability(b) Facilitate learning and improvement(c) Provide early warning signals(d) Facilitate decision-making processesThe objectives are also for the performance management system to serve as a primary mechanism to monitor,review and improve the implementation of Lekwa Local Municipality’s IDP through a performancemanagement system.207 | P a g e