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This doctoral thesis essentially investigates what is currently done by South African municipalities with regard to the training and development of their personnel. The study was necessitated by the fact that personnel plays an important role in the viability of any local authority. Therefore, the quality of manpower should be above suspicion. Moreover, with the advent of the expected implications of the new constitutional dispensation it is imperative that attention shall be focused timeously on the training and development of the human resources available to local government and administration. The need for training and development also dominates the arena in view of the continued extention of government activities and the concomitant creation of new State institutions. Thus, the above reasoning serves as rationale for the background description of the right of existence of local authorities. The term, local authorities, is, therefore, viewed as a collective noun for all institutions engaged in governing and administering community life on the local level, be it municipalities, village boards, health committees or institutions for the peri-urban areas. A discussion of municipal administration is also given as it justifies a review of the location thereof within the spectrum of public administration, given its distinctive environment and character. Furthermore, an exposition of municipal personnel administration within the context of municipal administration is imperative should one wish to understand the delicate processes of provisioning, maintenance, utilisation and above all, training and development of scarce manpower resources. Coupled with the description of the components of municipal personnel administration, follows an explanation of the constituent parts of the activities, training and development. The study revealed that training is a process of which the groundwork is done by a related field, called education. Education starts at birth and continues ad infinitum. Education also provides the preparation-for-life foundation, whereby training continues as the preparation-for-work process. As a prerequisite for both processes to be successful, is an intellectual process, called learning. The will to learn then also prepares the individual with a willingness to develop at the hand of various ways and means. Thereafter the need for and the objectives of training within the institution is acknowledged and a description is given of how to identify and describe these needs and objectives in order to meet the common objective of local authorities, viz. the improvement of the general well-being of the citizenry. A responsibility rests on the individual municipalities to provide, through training and development programmes, the opportunity for municipal officials and employees on all levels, to develop. It is to this end that municipalities should endeavour to provide suitable training and development facilities and to utilise it to its fullest extent. Whether the facilities utilised, refers to on-the-job - or off-the-job training, the methods should be applied only after its relevant advantages and disadvantages have been carefully weighed and if it meets the requirements of the specific circumstances of the municipality. The study proves that in South Africa, there is not necessarily a shortage of available municipal manpower, but that a question-mark could be placed after the quality thereof in terms of training and development. It is, therefore, recommended that, in an endeavour to promote training and development activities, the following aspects, inter alia, deserve consideration: (a) the introduction at school level, of a course in environmental or public studies; (b) the establishment of a school of municipal government and administration in the Core City of each region specified in terms of the Regional Services Councils Act, 1985 (Act 109 of 1985); (c) that municipalities should devise a unique approach to training and development methods; (d) that training sessions should provide for the individual needs of the participants; (e) the publication of an annual report by the Local Training Board giving a detailed exposition of the nature and extent of training individually and collectively undertaken by leading South African municipalities; (f) the provision of specially designed and well-equipped technical training facilities; and (g) the establishment of resources centres or reading rooms to put periodicals, journals and relevant newspaper articles at the disposal of all the municipal employees. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Amsterdam, 1993. / "Stellingen" laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-330).

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / Training and development is an important issue in South African Local Government. These are related concepts. However, more emphasis is placed on training in this research report. Several authors argued that the majority of South African workers need new or significantly expanded skills to keep up with the demands of their jobs. Employee training and development (T&D) is seen as a key factor in meeting the employer’s strategic, business and operational goals. Others mentioned that the people who work in the public sector must constantly strive to act in a way that will lead to improvement of the quality of service delivery by public institutions. They also mentioned that training is aimed at the practical application of knowledge as well as the development of specific behavior patterns, attitudes and motives with a view to realizing goals (Carrell et al., 1999). The population increase leads to the expansion of organizations and their responsibilities. The changing constitutional and political dispensation of South Africa demands certain amendments and changes to be made by organizations. Increased pollution and shortage of natural resources demand certain strategies. The shortage of trained manpower causes higher demand to be made on the available manpower. All these shows needs and demands for training and development. Cloete and Mokgoro (1995:91) argued that the new government would have to rely heavily on the public service to implement new policy and facilitate development. They added that the council should develop broad guidelines for public sector training. Further these would relate to current and future human resource needs for the public service. In addition, such a policy would set standards for trainers and training programs (Cloete and Mokgoro, 1995). Training and development needs are examined in this research report to see how the Helderberg Municipality (Western Cape) has conducted its training. The study aims to identify the key obstacles for effective training. Some authors suggest that the simplest method of conducting a training survey is to go around asking managers and supervisors what they think are the training priorities in their department. The result obtained may be subjective but as long as the surveys are analyzed carefully, they would prove a useful starting point for analysis. The literature also suggests that the management and supervisors must feel involved from the beginning. This study focuses on the Helderberg Municipality. The researcher relied on the literature to gain more information about training and development, especially in the South African situation. Some interviews were conducted in the Helderberg Municipality. The study is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods. This researcher used the qualitative methods because she considered them as useful and that they would give her a wider scope. By contrast, the quantitative method would be useful hence figures are also provided. Some interviews were conducted with the Training Manager of the Helderberg Municipality. The study could help the Helderberg Municipality to rectify its weaknesses and deal with their current challenges of training and development. Policy makers and consultants could use the results of this study to formulate policies for municipalities. Lastly, students could also benefit from this study by using it as a source of reference. / South Africa

The impetus that informs the drive for developmental state that promotes growth and development centres on the local capacity of the local sphere of the government to effectively discharge its responsibilities. The essence of this study is to evaluate the training of officials in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality and assess the extent to which service delivery has impacted on the lives of the community within this area.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the empowerment needs of councillors in a municipality. The main focus was to assess the successes or inadequacies of the empowerment programmes previously offered to councillors by the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality. In order to achieve the research objectives an in-depth literature study was undertaken. A survey was also conducted to examine the level of empowerment being offered by the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality to its councillors and the data was collected by means of self-administered questionnaires. The literature study proved the hypothesis to be correct, which stated that empowered councillors could enhance effective public participation, effective communication which could result in effective service delivery. The empirical study revealed that certain councillors require adequate training in areas such as communication skills, council’s rules of procedures and new developmental mandate assigned to local government. The empirical survey also revealed that there is limited mutual trust between councillors and the senior officials, immediate intervention is required to restore trust between councillors and officials. It has been recommended that King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality should not only provide regular “in house” training, but also training conducted by outside agencies is required. In certain instances, one may find that municipalities may not have fully capacitated persons for “in house” training. Thus, outside agencies which possess the relevant expertise such as universities and SALGA should be encouraged to also facilitate capacity training for councillors.

There is a perception that municipal employees are not committed to their jobs of delivering essential services to the residents.This perception is often exacerbated by media opinion that tend to project an unacceptable image about the work ethics and behaviour of public sector officials. Local government is at the coalface of services delivery in South Africa.Almost all complaints and service delivery protests are directed by communities to municipalities. This necessitates that local government employees should always be ready to serve the people with passion and vigour. From the advent of democratic dispensation in South Africa in 1994 the transformation of the public sector has become one of the central priorities of government.The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) sets the agenda of a developmental state and outlines objects of local government in Sections 152 and 153 of the supreme law of the land. Flowing from this Constitutional mandate a legislative and policy framework is enacted to guide the municipalities to ensure effective and efficient delivery of services to communities .In this respect the study argues that central to the delivery of services is the human capital. The researcher asserts that it is not the building or any other municipal asset that will ensure delivery of quality services to citizens, but the employees. Employees have a responsibility to ensure that goals and objectives of the OR Tambo District Municipality are realised. The researcher contends that there is a perception that there could be low levels of job satisfaction within the workforce of ORTDM .This could have a negative effect to the provision of basic services to the public .Thus this study is aimed to investigate factors that may affect employee satisfaction in the ORTDM. High level of job satisfaction amongst employees may cause ahighly dedicated and committed workforce. The consequence of that could be a positive impact on municipal performance.

Anti-corruption measures are put forward as a panacea to effective procurement system, among other things, which ultimately improve service delivery. Corruption has demonstrated remarkable durability and flexibility to survive in all socio-economic systems with the conception of a corruption-free economy in reality, is hardly possible. Given this background, this study sought to evaluate the efficacy of the already implemented anti-corruption measures in the procurememt procecesses of Marondera municipality. To understand their effectiveness, relevant literature was reviewed. Different scholars point against the ineffectiveness of these measures, with Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from previous research showing devastating results in Zimbabwean local institutions. A further discussion of corruption cenception, different anti-corruption measures and legal frameworks gave a greater understanding of the area under study. In this study, a sample of 80 respondents was identified and data collected from them using both snow ball and purposive sampling methods. Thirty-five of them were females respondents and forty-five were male respondents from Marondera municipal community, with different demographic characteristics which was used for comparison of responses. Questionnaires and interviews were used as research instruments. Both the Quantitative and Qualitative research methods were used in the anaylsis of the data, to increase validity and reliability of the feelings.

This study consists of literature research providing background and basic knowledge on layoff-related issues, and analysis of data obtained through a survey of human resources professionals in 30 mid-size Southern California cities. The survey provided information on the layoff experiences of respondents' cities and the current state of affairs pertaining to layoff policies, procedures and perceptions.

Multi-Attribute Utility Technology (MAUT) was investigated as an alternative organizational training evaluation method. Research questions focused on what problems emerge in involving stakeholders in training evaluation, what technical problems emerge in the application of the MAUT steps, and what can be learned about the credibility of MAUT results and their impact on decision making. Five employee training courses offered by a city government training unit were evaluated. Two groups of stakeholders developed desired course attributes and indicators using MAUT. Survey data collected from students and their immediate supervisors provided indicator measurements. Location measures and utilities were provided to stakeholders and students. Stakeholders then evaluated MAUT from the participant perspective. Positive and negative findings had implications for the effective use of MAUT. Positive findings were that stakeholders valued the group process and opportunity to have input to the evaluation; surveys were useful for measuring attribute indicators; the development of attributes, indicators, weights and location measures presented no technical problem; and, that MAUT results were credible to students and Stakeholders. Negative findings were that stakeholder availability was very difficult to obtain; not all stakeholders could deal with the conceptual tasks of MAUT; surveys were not feasible for attribute development; calculation and interpretation of MAUT utilities were seen as too complex by stakeholders; and, the use of MAUT results to influence decisions was hindered by the perceived complexity and the absence in the study of the primary decision maker for training. It was concluded that a major strength of MAUT is that it affords the investigator the opportunity to easily tap into the organizational culture and political setting of a program. In addition, the strengths of MAUT as a training evaluation method are highly dependent on inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, a strong commitment of stakeholder time, stakeholder ability to communicate values and priorities, and, the clear and simple reporting of MAUT results. Detailed recommendations for the effective use of MAUT are provided. / Ph. D.