Municipal Institutional Development

The Constitution of SALGA mandated the MID directorate to support municipalities within three overarching themes: Capacity Building; Collective Bargaining and Municipal Human Resources (Municipal HR).

• The following serve as the main objectives of the MID directorate as per SALGA Constitution:
• Represent, promote and protect the interests of the municipality as the employer body of all municipalities;
• Regulate the relationship between  members and their employees in terms of the Labour Relations Act;
• Provide legal assistance to municipalities, in sound discretion, in connection with matters which affect employer/employee relations; and
• Encourage the settlement of disputes among its members and between them and their employees or trade union through co-operative governance or labour law principles.

The directorate has the following units that serve as an instrument to enable the MID to deliver on its core functions:

1. Capacity Building
2. Municipal Labour /Collective Bargaining
3. Municipal Human Resource Support

Capacity Building through thought leadership by improving SALGA’s capacity to support and advise its members through:

• strengthening policy analysis, research and monitoring capacity
• strengthening the knowledge sharing programme
• developing guidelines in response to issues being raised by members
• provision of general capacity building and hands-on support to members.

Collective Bargaining, representing members as the employer  body at collective bargaining and promoting a mutual gains/win-win negotiating approach through:

• facilitating the implementation of a Labour and HR dispensation in municipalities that enhances service delivery
• advocating labour peace in this sector by, amongst others, ensuring municipal compliance with workplace legislation; and
• ensuring effective SALGA representation in collective bargaining and dispute resolution processes

Human Resource Support through people development programmes that contribute to municipal transformation and organisational development by ensuring as these  relate  to human capital management:

• effective transfer of primary health care services effective devolution of municipal health services
• effective management of EDI restructuring processes
• contribution to, and support of, the government programme of public sector integration; and
• effective transfer of water services.

• To learn examples of best Strategic Human Resources Initiatives currently being utilised in the field;
• To learn and share practical and daily application of employment law in the workplace;
• To hear about the ever-changing role of the Human Resource function and how one can best carry out the job in line with the business of municipalities as service delivery institutions challenged with developmental duties as a delegated sphere of government;
• To develop and learn how to implement a Human Resources Strategic Plan that is a link to and supports an organisation/municipality business plan;
• On the basis of Conference information gathered, using its resolutions, develop a Draft Human Resources Strategy Working Document as a baseline policy framework.
• Unpack Human Resources implications of the Local Government Turn-Around Strategy (LGTAS) and develop appropriate responses.

MID plays a crucial role in collective bargaining as prescribed in our mandate as the employer body representing our members. In representing our members in collective bargaining MID promotes an approach which is mutually beneficial in wage negotiations and also facilitating the implementation of Labour and HR policies enhancing service delivery as well ensuring municipal compliance with legislation.

To date to the unit has been able to improve:

• A multi year Salary and Wage Agreement was concluded in 2009, which should create stability in the LG sector until 2012, when it will be re-negotiated
• An evaluation of the SALGBC was completed, alongside a Remedial Plan to address weaknesses in the SALGBC divisions.
• SALGA introduced a process of benchmarking to ensure that municipalities which have not finalised their job evaluation processes and/or the development of job descriptions were benchmarked against identified equivalent municipalities according to the Bench-Marking Model Document.

The Municipal Human Resource Support unit support function exists to satisfy a support and an advocacy role within the entire sphere of municipal HR.  The ultimate objective is to empower municipalities to attract and retain a diverse, highly skilled, productive, healthy, and efficient workforce custom fit to deliver an excellent service to the communities it serves.

SALGA, together with Strategic Partners, embarked on a National Skills Audit Project. The main aim of the Skills Audit project is to ensure Continuation of the Local Government Skills Audit to facilitate further development of the adopted baseline methodology and Web tool (Gap Skill) to accommodate changing circumstances in municipalities.

Some of the accomplishments and imminent endeavors entail the following:

• The development of programmes, processes and systems that "fit" the needs of Local Government;
• Provide on-going support and advice to fulfill the commitment to professionalism and service excellence;
• Partnering in conducting skills audit to facilitate the process of managing the supply versus the demand of skills in Local Government.  To also inform the succession, development, retention and exit strategies.
• The development and implementation of the HR strategy that will comprise of some of the following:  strengthening of municipalities to become employers of choice; adopt and implement the employee wellness programmes, talent acquisition and management of the entire employee life cycle etc.
• Establishment of the HR Forum and continuously reviewing its role in relation to their terms of reference;
• Development, training and constituting structures to implement, monitor and ensure a continuing review and improvement of the performance management system and the related Vuna award and recognition scheme;
• Explore the consolidation of HR and payroll data for easy retrieval and accurate reporting with minimum effort.  
• Secure buy in and implement approved recommendations of the various surveys conducted on amongst others the following: uniform HR norms and standards; report on the current state of local government human resource practices and the impact it has on developmental local government system etc.
• Participate in the legislative reforms processes to ensure that the interest of local government on HR matters is represented and protected through lobbying and advocacy;
• Facilitate the formulation, implementation and continuous monitoring and adapting of HR policies and processes to ensure alignment with the needs and goals of the municipalities.

Teaching materials for Councillor Induction and conducted the induction of newly elected Councillors after a large number of by- elections as a consequence of councilors moving into other spheres of government after the elections in April 2009.

The following programmes are facilitated by SALGA in partnership with other stakeholders:

• Councillor Certificate
• Executive Leadership and Management Development Programme (ELMDP);
• Local Democracy and Local Governance (LODLOG);
• Gender Mainstreaming for Local Government  (GEMLOG); and
• Conflict Management.

Two MOU’s were signed between SALGA, SIDA and SKL for rolling out the LODLOG, and GEMLOG  programmes, which comprises both local/ South African and international class and experiential learning in Sweden.

Together with COGTA, LGSETA and the two Unions in local Government - SAMWU and IMATU -  implemented a Skills Audit programme and succeeded in finalising the audit of Section 57 managers.

Initiated a Situational Analysis of the state of HR management practices and its impact on local government.

Click here to download the latest Capacity Building Projects.