Port Vila, February 26th, 2025. The Office of the Public Service Commission (OPSC) has optimized its mandate of Organizational Performance assessment as stipulated in the Public Service Act focusing on performance enhancement from all government line agencies.
As stipulated in the Public Service Act Part 1 Section 4(j), one of the core principles of the Public Service and OPSC is to focus on achieving results and managing performance and as the employer arm of the Government, OPSC has the responsibility to manage, monitor and support the performance of Departments through planning and reporting. It also has to provide feedback on the annual performance of various departments under its jurisdiction.
The OPSC is working on strengthening organizational performance in close collaboration with its stakeholders namely the Department of Strategic Policy, Planning and Aid Coordination (DSPPAC), Department of Finance (DoFT), National Audit Office, Vanuatu Bureau of Statistics (VBoS) and the Parliament of Vanuatu on the assessment of Annual Reports from all government line agencies.
As mandated under COMs Decision 55 of 2021, OPSC, Ministry of Finance & Economic Management (MFEM) and DSPPAC to continue to monitor alignments of all planning documents to National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP) including Corporate Plan, Business Plan and Budget Narrative. It is noted that Annual reports are reported against the approved Business Plan with a strong focus on how the budget Appropriations have been used by each Ministry.
Importantly, the organizational performance assessment aims to:
- Provide feedback on the overall performance of departments and ministries against their respective Annual Reports and appropriated budgets.
- To assess whether or not departments and ministries comply with the Public Service Planning and Reporting Guidelines.
- Identify departments and ministries’ common challenges with regards to planning and report requirement highlighted under the PSC Act from past and recently approved guidelines.
- The challenges and findings identified from the reports will form the basis for performance improvement of departments and ministries through planning and reporting.
During the past 2 years PSC has conducted performance audit of Ministries and Department. The assessment/audit reveal the following performance rating as illustrated on the picture below.
According to the PSC Act Section 20 (h), Director Generals are required to prepare Annual Reports by 31st of March each year and Ministers responsible are required to table the Report in Parliament within 14 sitting days of receipt of the reports. This reporting component is essential to gauge the performance of line agencies whether they are performing and the money appropriated was utilized to provide service delivery as expected.
Moreover, with the assistance of our stakeholders OPSC through the Organizational Development Unit (ODU) successfully carried out the assessment of 2023 Annual reports and for the first time, OPSC has introduced the Organizational Award that was awarded to the best performing ministries as part of the Public Service Day event in 2024.
OPSC will continue to work closely with our Ministers to enforce their lawful directive under Section 22 of the PSC Act which states: ‘Director General, director or any other employee is subject to the lawful direction of his or her Minister in relation to exercising his or her powers or performing his or her functions under this act.
The Public Service Commission will continue to review and strengthen our current procedures including the PSC Act to improve our current standards of service.