Programme Director, distinguished guests and colleagues from Mpumalanga legislature, and colleagues from other legislatures who may be connected including my colleagues at LSS – good morning.
It is a privilege to contribute to this important conversation on the professionalisation of the public sector and its implications for the legislative sector.
At the heart of this discussion is a fundamental question: What does it take to build institutions that are not only properly constituted and adequately staffed, but also capable of fulfilling their constitutional mandates with competence, integrity and impact?
Professionalisation has become an important reform imperative in South Africa. It reflects the recognition that a capable state cannot be built through policy commitments alone. It requires people with the right competencies, ethical leadership, effective institutions, sound systems and a culture of accountability.
However, professionalisation must be understood as more than recruitment, qualifications, training or compliance with human-resource policies. It is fundamentally about building institutions that consistently translate their mandates into meaningful public value.
This distinction is particularly important for the legislative sector. The effectiveness of Parliament and provincial legislatures depends not only on the quality of elected representatives, but also on the professional competence, institutional independence and technical capacity of the administrations that support them.
My central argument today is that the professionalisation of the legislative sector must be approached as a deliberate institutional capability reform, aligned with South Africa’s broader public-sector professionalisation agenda but responsive to the distinctive constitutional role of legislatures.
Understanding Professionalisation: The Conceptual Issues
Professionalisation encompasses several interdependent dimensions.
First, there is professional competence: the knowledge, skills, experience and judgement required to perform particular functions effectively. Professional competence is a defining characteristic of professional practice and underpins the ability of public institutions to deliver on their mandates (Freidson, 2001; Noordegraaf, 2007).
Second, there is professional ethics: integrity, impartiality, accountability and a commitment to serving the public interest. Scholars such as Terry L. Cooper (2012) and James S. Bowman have argued that ethical conduct is central to public service professionalism and public trust in institutions.
Third, there is institutional capability: the leadership, organisational culture, systems, resources and structures that enable individual competence to translate into collective performance. As Peter Evans (1995) and Merilee Grindle (1997) demonstrate in their work on state capacity, institutional performance depends not only on individual skills but also on the capabilities embedded within organisations and governance systems.
Finally, there is professional accountability: the obligation to demonstrate that professional standards and capabilities contribute to improved institutional outcomes and public value. Mark Moore (1995) and Christopher Pollitt (2003) emphasise that professionalism in the public sector must ultimately be linked to measurable institutional performance, accountability and value creation for citizens
These dimensions are inseparable.
An institution may employ highly qualified individuals and still perform poorly because of weak leadership, inappropriate appointments, fragmented systems or a culture that discourages independent professional judgement.
We must therefore distinguish between having qualified employees and building capable institutions.
This distinction raises several important tensions.
How do we balance political responsiveness with merit-based appointments? How do we protect administrative impartiality while ensuring that public servants remain accountable to elected political leadership? How do we pursue transformation while strengthening competence, institutional memory and continuity? And how do we move beyond measuring compliance and activities towards measuring institutional performance and public value?
These questions are equally relevant to the legislative sector, where political contestation is inherent in the work of democratic institutions.
Professionalisation cannot remove politics from legislatures. Rather, it must ensure that professional administrations enable democratic political contestation while safeguarding constitutional integrity, institutional competence and fairness.
South Africa’s Journey Since 1994: Progress and Unfinished Business
South Africa has travelled a significant distance in transforming its public administration since the advent of democracy.
The democratic transition in 1994 created the imperative to transform the inherited apartheid administration into a representative, accountable, developmental and responsive state.
The 1995 White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service, the Presidential Review Commission of 1996 and the Constitution of 1996 established important foundations for public administration based on accountability, efficiency, representativeness and professional conduct.
The Batho Pele principles, introduced in 1997, reinforced the commitment to putting people first. Subsequent reforms, including the development of the Senior Management Service and its competency framework, strengthened the focus on management capability and performance.
A significant milestone was the National Development Plan 2030, adopted in 2012, which articulated the need for a capable and developmental state supported by a professional, career-oriented public service.
The National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector, approved by Cabinet in October 2022 and published in 2023, represented another important step. It provides an integrated approach to professionalisation, including recruitment, induction, continuous development, performance management, ethics and career progression.
Program Director; allow me for a moment to problematise the professionalisation framework. Not much progress has been achieved since its approval by Cabinet in October 2022. It has been constrained by a number of policy-level weaknesses that undermine implementation across the public sector.
A key challenge is the absence of a coherent and enforceable implementation architecture that links professional standards, competency requirements, recruitment, performance management and career progression.
While the framework articulates the need for a capable, ethical and developmental state, departments and institutions retain significant discretion in implementation, resulting in uneven adoption and limited accountability. South African scholars such as Ivor Chipkin and Brian Levy argue that weaknesses in state capability, institutional fragmentation and variable administrative capacity continue to impede reforms aimed at building a professional public service. Similarly, the National Planning Commission identified inconsistent application of merit principles, skills deficits and weak management practices as major obstacles to public sector professionalisation.
A further challenge is the misalignment between policy ambitions and the organisational realities of public institutions. Professionalisation initiatives often compete with political, fiscal and organisational constraints, including high staff turnover, limited investment in continuous professional development, and weak consequence management. Professionalisation requires more than training and qualifications; it depends on an institutional culture that rewards competence, ethical conduct and performance.
In many cases, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms focus on compliance with processes rather than measuring improvements in capability and service delivery outcomes, resulting in a gap between policy intent and practical implementation. Consequently, the framework’s success remains dependent on stronger governance arrangements, leadership commitment, and effective monitoring systems that can drive implementation across institutions
These reforms demonstrate that South Africa has not lacked policy ambition or an understanding of what professionalisation requires. Our challenge has been the uneven translation of policy commitments into institutional practice and ensuring proper co-ordination and resource allocation to enable implementation.
Several concerns remain.
First, merit-based recruitment and promotion must be consistently protected against patronage and inappropriate political influence.
Second, qualifications and training must translate into demonstrated competence, sound judgement and improved performance.
Third, the political-administrative interface requires clarity. Political leaders must be able to determine policy direction, while professional administrators must be able to execute lawful decisions competently and accountably. There is legislation in place to fix this challenge – the PS Amendment Act assented by President Ramaphosa in April 2026. However, this legislation is not in effect as regulations have not been published by the relevant department.
Fourth, institutional accountability must focus on results rather than compliance alone. Training attendance completed performance agreements and approved frameworks are not, by themselves, evidence of professionalisation.
The critical question is therefore not whether South Africa has developed appropriate policies. It is whether these policies have sufficiently changed institutional behaviour, leadership practices and the capacity of the state to deliver.
Our experience teaches us that professionalisation is not a once-off intervention. It requires sustained political commitment, capable leadership, consistent implementation and credible consequences for misconduct and poor performance.
However, not all is lost. The legislative sector still has a significant opportunity to influence the success of professionalisation through its constitutional oversight responsibilities.
Parliament and provincial legislatures can strengthen oversight by systematically scrutinising the implementation of the Professionalisation Framework during annual performance plan and budget reviews, requiring departments to report not only on training interventions but also on how professionalisation is improving institutional capability and service delivery outcomes.
Portfolio and standing committees can request evidence of merit-based recruitment practices, implementation of competency frameworks, succession planning, vacancy management, ethics and integrity programmes, and consequence management for poor performance and misconduct.
Legislatures can also strengthen accountability by monitoring the implementation of recommendations made by the Public Service Commission, the Auditor-General South Africa, and by assessing whether departments are creating professional, capable and ethical administrations as envisaged in the National Framework Towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector. Through robust evidence-based oversight, legislatures can help ensure that professionalisation moves beyond policy commitments and becomes embedded in the everyday functioning of the public sector
Implications for the Legislative Sector: The Strategic Role of Legislative Sector Support
The professionalisation of the legislative sector requires us to move beyond isolated institutional interventions towards a coordinated, long-term approach to building the collective capability of our legislatures. Parliament and provincial legislatures operate within a shared constitutional and democratic framework, yet their institutional capacity, resources, systems and professional development needs may differ. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity: to strengthen common professional standards while respecting the autonomy and distinct circumstances of each legislature.
The professionalisation of the legislative sector requires a shift from focusing on individual training initiatives to building capable, ethical and sustainable institutions.
This begins with developing a specialised legislative workforce equipped with the competencies required for legislative drafting, constitutional analysis, research, oversight, public finance scrutiny and public participation.
At the same time, professionalisation must safeguard the impartiality and autonomy of legislative administrations, ensuring that technical support to elected representatives remains credible, objective and free from inappropriate interference.
It also requires deliberate investment in leadership development, succession planning and knowledge management to preserve institutional memory and maintain continuity despite changes in political leadership and electoral cycles.
Professionalisation should ultimately be measured by its impact on institutional performance rather than the number of officials trained, workshops conducted or reports produced. The key test is whether legislatures are better able to scrutinise budgets, conduct evidence-based oversight, strengthen accountability, and facilitate meaningful public participation.
To achieve this, the legislative sector should consider a dedicated professionalisation framework aligned with national public sector reforms while recognising the unique autonomy of Parliament and provincial legislatures. Such a framework could establish common competency standards, career pathways, ethical requirements and capability assessment mechanisms, supported through collaboration with universities, professional bodies and the Parliamentary Institute.
The overarching goal is to build resilient institutions that outlast individuals, strengthen democracy, and improve the sector’s capacity to fulfil its constitutional mandate.
Chairperson, as I move towards conclusion; the Legislative Sector Support (LSS) is best positioned not simply as a coordinator of support activities, but as a strategic enabler of sector-wide capability, coherence and institutional performance.
We have a critical role to partner with legislatures and shape a shared professionalisation agenda for the legislative sector, identify systemic capability gaps, and facilitate collective solutions that strengthen the constitutional performance of Parliament and provincial legislatures.
Rather than focusing on fragmented capacity-building interventions, LSS should drive a coordinated approach to developing the skills, standards, knowledge and leadership required for effective legislative governance.
To fulfil this mandate of supporting legislatures to professionalise; LSS should focus on five strategic priorities: • promoting sector-wide coherence and direction; • facilitating capability assessments and institutional development; • supporting the establishment of common professional standards and career pathways; • strengthening knowledge management, • innovation and organisational learning; and championing accountability for professionalisation outcomes.
The successful professionalisation of the legislative sector will require a strong institutional partnership between legislatures and the South African Parliamentary Institute (SAPI).
While LSS should provide strategic leadership, sector coordination and oversight of professionalisation initiatives, SAPI should serve as the sector’s dedicated capacity-building and knowledge partner.
Through the development of competency frameworks, professional learning pathways, leadership programmes, research and communities of practice, SAPI can help build the specialised knowledge, skills and institutional capabilities required to support effective law-making, robust oversight and meaningful public participation. Together, we can create an integrated system that links professional development to improved institutional performance and stronger constitutional outcomes across the legislative sector.
Conclusion
Programme Director and colleagues,
The question before us is not whether professionalisation is desirable.
The real question is whether our legislatures can continue to fulfil their constitutional responsibilities without deliberate investment in professional capability.
Legislatures occupy a unique place in our democracy. They make laws, oversee the exercise of executive authority, scrutinise public expenditure and provide citizens with a voice in democratic governance. The quality of these constitutional functions depends not only on elected representatives, but equally on the professionalism, competence and integrity of the institutions that support them.
This is why professionalisation matters.
Professionalisation is not an end in itself. It is not about training numbers, qualifications achieved, policies adopted or frameworks approved. It is about ensuring that legislatures possess the institutional capability required to perform their constitutional mandate consistently, effectively and credibly.
When legislatures are supported by professional institutions, oversight becomes more rigorous, law-making more evidence-based, public participation more meaningful and accountability more effective. When professional capability is weak, democratic institutions become vulnerable to declining performance, loss of public trust and diminished constitutional impact.
The challenge before us, therefore, is larger than workforce development. It is the challenge of building institutions that can retain knowledge, develop expertise, uphold ethical standards and sustain performance across generations of leaders and officials.
This is the contribution that Legislative Sector Support, working in partnership with SAPI and individual legislatures, must seek to make. Our role is to help create the conditions through which professionalisation translates into stronger institutional capability and, ultimately, stronger constitutional outcomes.
At its core, the professionalisation of the legislative sector is about safeguarding democracy itself.
Because strong oversight depends on capable institutions.
Meaningful public participation depends on credible institutions.
Accountability depends on trusted institutions.
And constitutional governance depends on institutions whose effectiveness does not depend on particular individuals, but on enduring systems, values and professional standards.
The true measure of professionalisation is therefore not whether we have developed more professionals, but whether we have built legislative institutions that are more capable of strengthening democracy, defending accountability and serving the people of South Africa.
That is the standard against which we should judge our progress. That is the responsibility entrusted to us. And that is the legacy we should strive to leave for future generations.
I thank you.
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