The impact and challenges of a public policy implemented in the South African Police Service, Northern Cape

Prosper K Hoeyi,Karabo R Makgari

doi:10.4102/apsdpr.v9i1.374

Abstract

Background: South Africa has evolved new policies and legislations to renew the governance and administrative systems of the country in the wake of multiparty democracy. However, public institutions, including the South African Police Service (SAPS), are still criticised for poor service delivery. The SAPS has often blamed its perceived poor performance on inadequate resources despite the existence of a supply chain management (SCM) policy that seeks to bring efficiency in the acquisition and deployment of resources for service delivery. Therefore, using the framework of public policy theory, this study sought to assess the perceptions of personnel at SAPS in Northern Cape province on the SCM policy’s impact on service delivery and the challenges thereof. Aim: The aim is to contribute to the understanding of how SCM policies enhance the service delivery capabilities of government departments. Setting: The setting is SAPS in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Methods: The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design with a main survey and a follow-up survey being conducted. The main survey involved data collection from 174 staff members while the follow-up survey involved 70 respondents. Results: Statistical analysis of the two sets of data revealed that the SCM policy has had some positive on service delivery. Staffing inadequacy was found to be the biggest challenge. In fact, 12 out of the 15 challenges are attributable to the human factor. Conclusion: The SCM policy has had some positive impact on service delivery in SAPS NC, but there is room for improvement.

Highlights

To solve societal problems, support governmental institutions and encourage active citizenship, public policies are required (Hill & Varone 2017:16)
This is derived from the frequency counts under ‘Tenure’. This translates into a frequency percentage of 89.08% of respondents having a tenure of 6 or more years with the remaining 10.92% having a tenure of less than 6 years. This means that the overwhelming majority of respondents of the survey had been in the organisation for a long enough period to understand the phenomenon that was being measured, given that the implementation of the supply chain management (SCM) policy began in 2003 (Bizana et al 2015:668; National Treasury 2004:2)
The results of this study have revealed the human factor as the main stumbling block to the implementation of the SCM policy in South African Police Service (SAPS) NC

Summary

Introduction

Support governmental institutions and encourage active citizenship, public policies are required (Hill & Varone 2017:16). Public policies have certain key features, such as: (1) the approaches used to arrive at them, (2) the goal or purpose for which they are formulated, (3) the focus or content of the particular policy and (4) the tools or instruments contained in the policy. The goal or purpose is what the policy is intended to achieve, which invariably involves solving a societal problem. Examples of policy tools are taxes, regulation, grants, services, budgets, information and rights (Fischer et al 2017:82). The SAPS has often blamed its perceived poor performance on inadequate resources despite the existence of a supply chain management (SCM) policy that seeks to bring efficiency in the acquisition and deployment of resources for service delivery. Using the framework of public policy theory, this study sought to assess the perceptions of personnel at SAPS in Northern Cape province on the SCM policy’s impact on service delivery and the challenges thereof

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion