Community Safety
(a) What is the rationale for the establishment of the Western Cape Police Ombudsman, (b) how will the Ombudsman relate to the existing Secretariate, (b) how will the office be staffed and (c) what is the (i) establishment budget and (ii) projected budget?
(a) The rationale for the establishment of the Western Cape Police Ombudsman is to establish the required skills needed to effectively deal with complaints from the community about service delivery by the police. This is a function assigned to provinces by section 206(5) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
The Civilian Secretariat for Police Act does not provide for a legal mandate to the Secretariat to deal with complaints about policing with section 6 (1)(j) only allowing for the Secretariat to “assess and monitor the police service’s ability to receive and deal with complaints against its members” This does not satisfy the responsibility that rest with provinces to deal with such complaints allowing for the Western Cape Police Ombudsman to complement the work of the Secretariat
(b) The current allocation of staff is one post on salary level 11, two posts on salary level 9, two posts on salary level 8 and 2 posts on salary level 7.
(c)(i) The budget for compensation of employees is R2.4 million
(ii) The projected budget is R7.5 million
