THE CPSI Leading the way in public sector improvement through innovation

As the country gradually emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic grip, what has become unambiguously and explicitly clear to all of us is the importance of a reliably effective government – a government that would have as its key defining characteristics, foresight, innovativeness, agility, and flexibility to perform competitively.

When making landfall in early 2020, the Pandemic found South Africa having barely turned the corner after a serious economic meltdown that had the world in a tight grip, unfortunately pushing us further into an even deeper socioeconomic abyss. The end result was an unprecedented instability in many fronts, rising unemployment and subsequent poverty to name just a few.

On the other hand, with the introduction of several stringent measures to curb the spread of the virus, several weaknesses which lay hidden in our service delivery value chain were exposed, which throttled the flow of services to citizens. Suddenly we came face-to-face with the disturbing reality of our thinly stretched government budgets and resources, and of course our public service which was visibly overwhelmed by the demands of the moment.

A Reawakening Call

Paradoxically, as challenging as COVID-19 proved to be, it also presented a rare and golden opportunity – a moment of reckoning – whereupon we had to choose to engage widely on new alternative ways of adapting to the new normality that the Pandemic presented for survival. This meant knuckling down and ruthlessly searching for new and effective ways of ensuring continuity of service delivery to citizens with minimal disruptions while also fuelling accelerated economic growth and job creation in the country. The pandemic also highlighted the critical value of strengthened intergovernmental relations to enhance integrated, collaborative and seamless service delivery.

The Mandate of the CPSI

Established in 2001 as a national government component within the Public Service and Administration Portfolio, the Centre for Public Service Innovation bears a strategic mandate to entrench the culture and practice of innovation in the public sector to improve service delivery.

This is in accordance with its vision of creating an effective and efficient solution-focused public sector through innovation. This work that the CPSI carries out further resonates with the National Development Plan, (NDP), which emphasises the adoption and implementation of innovation across state, business and social sectors to specifically target improvements in public service delivery. As part of its contribution towards building an effective and efficient public service through innovation, The CPSI endeavours to create an enabling environment within the public sector where innovation can thrive and is rewarded and mainstreamed to bolster capacity and development across government.

Accordingly, the CPSI continues to work collaboratively through strategic partnerships with institutions across the three spheres of government, SMME innovators and lately the youth for a wider, more diversified and rich perspective in its search for innovative solutions. Through these partnerships, the CPSI has unearthed a number of fit-for-purpose solutions that solves a number of service delivery challenges.

The CPSI prides itself in the Digital Youth Development Programme, through which a number of solutions are developed in partnership with the wider innovation eco-system. In this regard, the CPSI works with a number of government departments to develop a number of solutions, for instance the Centre is working with the Northern cape to develop an online Thusong Centre.

As part of its work to promote innovation in the public sector, the CPSI has been running an Annual Public Sector Innovation Awards Programme since 2003. The main objective of this Awards Programme is to unearth, recognise and reward innovation in various government institutions with the ultimate aim of replicating, upscaling and mainstreaming innovations to ensure impartial and equitable access to quality services by all citizens.

Throughout all these years, the CPSI has continued to unearth a number of innovations through this Awards Programme

These include, amongst others:

• The BIZPORTAL Project by the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC.) which was developed to provide for straight-through instant online processing of business registration documents and other many vital services;

• The Sunward E-learning Solution that integrates several e-learning tools and content through an interactive and intelligent timetable offering a robust online teaching-learning experience. This solution was first implemented in Gauteng and is being replicated in a number of schools Eastern Cape, North West and Free State as part of the CPSI Replication Programme;

• The High Cataract Volume project which was first implemented in Western Cape and then replicated in a number of Gauteng hospitals;

• The Saving Blood, Saving Lives project first implemented in KwaZulu-Natal that attracted a lot of interest from several hospital across the country.

These innovations coming from the public service not only point to the depth of innovation and creativity amongst public servants. Most notably, they also demonstrate the potential in innovation to transform our government into a more flexible and agile machinery that can deliver services.

They also highlight the catalytic value of innovation in accelerating the delivery of services to improve the lives of citizens.

The CPSI further advocates for capacity building in and adoption of 4IR and related fields - like Design Thinking in the Public Sector.

CONTACT DETAILS

Tel: 012 683 2800 Fax: 012 643 0943 Web: www.cpsi.co.za

Address: Batho Pele House, 546 Edmond Street, Arcardia, Pretoria