Promptness In Disciplinary Proceedings of Employees in One Provincial Department of Education in South Africa

Proceedings of The 6th International Conference on Advanced Research in Social Sciences

Year: 2023

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6th.icarss.2023.06.101

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Promptness In Disciplinary Proceedings of Employees in One Provincial Department of Education in South Africa

Mmeli Advocate Attorney Macanda

 

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

Efficiency is one of the values and principles that appear in the Constitution. It is reflected in the legislative and policy framework that underpins how public services ought to be delivered. It requires that services be delivered effectively with due diligence to considerations of costs, time, and frugality. One of the enablers of efficiency is the promptness through which services should be delivered in the public sector. Promptness requires that services be delivered without unreasonable delay. Disciplinary proceedings in the public sector have the potential to hinder or enable the efficient delivery of diverse public services. This paper aims to investigate how the principle of promptness, as an aspect of efficiency, good, and just administration, is enacted in the disciplinary proceedings of the Department of Education in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Semi-structured and in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted. Policy documents and actual documents of the disciplinary cases were collected and analysed. The findings show that disciplinary proceedings of a complex nature and those involving senior officials are often protracted and fraught with delays that negatively impact the expected wheel of efficiency of the delivery of education services. The paper suggests what can be done to speed up disciplinary proceedings.

keywords: Efficiency, promptness, disciplinary proceedings, public service, department of education