action learning pilot programme project khaedu nelspruit home affairs office - preliminary findings...

Action Learning Pilot ProgrammeAction Learning Pilot ProgrammeProject Khaedu

Nelspruit Home Affairs Office - preliminary findings

Project Khaedu

Nelspruit Home Affairs Office - preliminary findings

10 February 200510 February 2005

2Khaedu Home Affairs

Agenda

Executive summary

Current situation

Complications preventing action

Suggested solutions-Macro-level process and organisation-Micro-level process and organisation-Budget and organisation-People


Executive Summary (1)

Customers unhappy with long wait times and lack of certainty / responses on when documents will be ready

Staff unhappy with facilities and career progression

Wide variation in volumes of work by time of day, day of week, time of month and year, but largely predictable

Low levels of actual efficiency as the organisation and processes lack scale and clear job definitions

- No effective separation of customer service- Processing efficiencies are low (data capture, quality checking, work-flow tracking)

Situation

Very hierarchical structure with significant management and supervisory overheads and no evidence of teaming

No evidence of managing by the numbers, largely ad hoc fire-fighting

Identified process improvement are not prioritised but would ease wait times significantly

Overall delegation of authority / responsibility seems low at the provincial and sub-region levels

Complications


Executive Summary (2)

1. At a province level, reorganise into 2 separate structures- Points of service dedicated to helping citizens fill out forms correctly and access

documents quickly- Central processing unit with responsibility for capturing data, resolving any quality

issues with the points of service and ensuring only good applications go to Pretoria- A small call centre with an 0800 number to provide general query and “where is my…?”

support to citizens

2. Prioritise the implementation of Quick fixes in service delivery e.g. cashier elimination, immediate printing of abridged documents at the counter, signage, form redesign (i.e. eliminate separate writing of acknowledgements)

3. Relocate management to the work area and begin to manage workload by the numbers e.g. move administrative staff into the service area when you know you are facing a peak load – cross-train and team

4. At a national level:- Efficiently delegate authority / responsibility for HR and budgets- Radically overhaul procurement- Reengineer the very long processing and printing time for key documents (targets

should be 2 weeks, not 2 months)

- Investigate urgently the use of SMS messaging to alert citizens to the availability of documents for pick up (approx 26c per message if done in bulk buy)- 18 million cell phones in South Africa – most people know somebody close by sho has

one


Customers of the Nelspruit Home Affairs regional office are unhappy at the long waiting times and times to respond…

Ease offilling

out form

Availabilityof forms

in mylanguage

Service ofstaff in

this office

Cleanliness Overallprocess

Time torepond

Waitingtime

3.38 3.33

2.75 2.732.28 2.25

1.38

0

1

2

3

4

5

Customer survey score

Very unhappy

Unhappy / OK

OK

Happy / OK

Very happy

Source: PSW Report back


…with complaints regarding lack of staff, conditions and lost applications

“Not enough staff, only 3 people to serve us; I’ve been here 4 hours.”

“The queues go on forever, even outside on a very hot day.”

“They have lost my application twice and they never tell you until you arrive to get your ID.”

“Staff are grumpy and it takes too long.”



Home Affairs staff are particularly unhappy with the lack of career progression, facilities and training, while overall management performance is relatively positive…

Ability toprovidegood

service

Compe-tency of

co-workers

Communi-cation

Jobcontent

Trainingquality

Facilities Careerprog-

ression

Overallmanagement

3.65 3.523.30

2.962.78

2.52 2.39

3.00

0

1

2

3

4

5

Staff survey score

Very unhappy

Unhappy / OK

OK

Happy / OK

Very happy



…again staffing was a major theme alongside facilities, career and training issues

“We are hopelessly understaffed; I don’t even have time to go to lunch.”

“We are stuck here all day; there is no job satisfaction when we are so understaffed.”

“The computer systems and furniture are all broken and the toilets are always in a mess.”

“There is no security – the public can come straight through to the offices.”

“I have been stuck at this grade for 6 years with no proper training.”


e.g. only 1 old printer to print 3500 abridged documents per month (probability of technical failure high)


The current organisation appears silo’d and hierarchical…

Regional representative

Head of Office: Nelspruit

Administration Head of Section

Supervisor Administration

Personnel / other (4)

Cleaning (1)Finance /

Accounts (3)

PermittingHead of Section

SupervisorPermitting

Clerical (x3)

Immigration Head of Section

Civic Affairs Section Head

SupervisorImmigration

SupervisorImmigration

Section 2Deportation etc (4)

Section 1Operations (4)

+2 interns

11 other reporting offices and ports

Secretary


…including in Civic Affairs


Civic AffairsSection Head

Civil AffairsSupervisor

Amend-ments Unit

Head

Counter staff (2)

Births and amend-ments to addresses Unit Head

Marriages & Deaths Unit

Head

ID Documents Unit Head

Passport Unit Head

Cashier (1)Finger prints

ClerkClerk

13 total staff in civic affairs


The queuing process is lengthy e.g. ID Document application average 1-4 hours

Enquiries and forms

Collect Counter clerk Cashier

Fingerprints

Queue for collection

Queue for acknowledgement

Queue for cashier

Queue for fingerprints

Fill out formsExternal

“assistance” to fill out forms


The queuing process is lengthy e.g. ID Document application average 1-4 hours


Budget for the office seems both inadequate (e.g. maintenance of office equipment) and does not make allowance for either inflation or likely wage increases

Budget Likelyactual*

10

54

0

10

20

30

40

50

R60K

Maintenance budget vslikely requirements

ENE04/05

MTEF05/06

MTEF05/06

4,095

4,2644,158

3,000

3,250

3,500

3,750

4,000

4,250

4,500

R4,750K

Basic wage bill

*40 PCs, copiers and printers

Likely public sector

pay rise

11% gap


Long and unreliable timelines to receive responses from Head Office significantly impact service delivery particularly if errors / issues only detected in Pretoria

Wait for Pretoria to respond Pick up documents

2-4 months average

Receive and check

application

Load application

Ship to Pretoria

Longer cases

1-6 weeks10 mins 24 hrs 12 hrs

Wait for Pretoria to respond Pick up documents

2-6 months average

Receive and check

application

Load application

Ship to Pretoria

Longer cases

1-6 weeks10 mins 24 hrs 12 hrs

E.g. passport application

E.g. ID replacement

Error / loss / issue in Pretoria – start at beginning


Volumes of work vary considerably across sections by month e.g. ID’s, CBI-9 etc

Feb Apr June July Aug Sept Dec Standarddeviation

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

Total number of ID applications

34%

Avg


…and births and passports

Feb Apr June July Aug Sept Dec

1,2781,364

1,5171,594

1,450

1,006

856

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

Number of birthregistrations

Feb Apr June July Aug Sept Dec StdDeviation

1,628

2,445

1,018

1,347

768

1,001908

581

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

Number of passportapplications


The macro organisation and process design offers no scale or specialisation opportunities e.g. Civic Affairs, with a lot of single points of potential failure


Civil AffairsSection Head

Civil AffairsSupervisor

Management

Cashier (1)Acknowledge-

ments (2)Collections (1)

Passp

orts

ID’sM

arria

ges a

nd

Death

s

Birth

s and

Am

endm

ents

Oth

er a

mendm

ents

Fingerp

rints

Customer service queries / errors

Capture and processing

Quality control / fraud protection

x2 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1


As an example, in passports, 2 staff process an average of 30 applications per day while handling all ad hoc customer queries, applications for temporary or emergency documents

Available worktime per day @70% efficiency

Estimated timeto process passport

@ 15 mins each

Ad hoc queries

672

-450222

0

200

400

600

800

Minutes per day

But normative standard for data and image capture is half estimated time i.e. 7 minutes vs 15 mins. Difference is a function of ad hoc workload


A suggested alternate structure for Civic Affairs

DDG Civic Affairs

Regional Manager MP

Processing Manager

Service Delivery Manager

Administration Manager

5-6 ‘Regional Managers’

Call Centre (6)

Processing Centre (20)

20 Service Points and satellites (60)

HR (2)

Finance / Accounts (2)

Procurement (1)

Logistics (1)

Total potential staff in MP = 97 - 101

action learning pilot programme project khaedu nelspruit home affairs office - preliminary findings...

Documents

khaedu home affairs

customers unhappy

organisation people

lack of staff

points of service

service area

ready staff unhappy

long processing