Abstract
M.A (Public Administration)
Training in local authorities in South Africa is seen against a background of development problems which include insufficient management skills and, inferior
education. These are typical problem of black people in South Africa.
It is against this background that, in the present day South Africa, there is a greater
sensitivity to the importance of good local government management than ever before.
Where skilled local government officials are scarce, as they were in the former black
local authorities, they should be developed. Training and development are perhaps
the first steps towards that end, though obviously they alone are not enough to solve
all the human resource deficiencies within these local government structures. This
dissertation identifies the priority training and development needs, describes current
training and development efforts in local government and proposes further steps that
local government should take to encourage, develop and support appropriate human
resource development.
Taking cognisance of lessons learned in training and developing elected councillors
and appointed officials in local government, a need for a more scientific assessment
of participants (councillors/officials) under going training and development was
identified thereby ensuring that training becomes more targeted and effective.
The original sample targeted for the assessment was 200 participants, being a little
more than 20% of the total of potential partic.ipants. Eventually 107 respondents
(11.2%) participated in the assessment. The sample is however enough to draw
conclusions and make generalisations. The assessment was carried out in five
centres: Germiston, Vanderbijlpark, Randfontein, Johannesburg and Pretoria. It was
done largely using focus group discussions where open-ended questions gave
participants enough opportunity to express themselves in an informal environment this
proved to be very effective.
The most pressing need identified by the participants was for training on the
budgetary processes.