The Presidential Employment Stimulus 'reimagines' public employment on terms that enable the following:

• The social value of labour is unlocked - even in a context in which it has no (or limited) market value
• The forms of work undertaken significantly expand traditional menus of 'public works', to focus on diverse forms of social value creation and work for the common good.
• Public employment is used as an instrument of community-driven development, unlocking local agency, building the commons and marshalling capacities, creativity and partnerships in the wider society to enable scale and impact.
• A portfolio approach allows for highly diverse development purposes - and innovation in achieving them - within a set of common criteria.
• Support to 'work' goes beyond traditional employment relationships, recognising that the changing nature of work requires changing forms of support in a context of crisis.
• The PES enables this from the centre of government.

The Presidential Employment Stimulus has been in implementation since October 2020 and has already been through three phases of programme design and approval, with shifts in the portfolio in each phase to optimise outcomes. Budgets are secure to March 2024. Discussion with our National Treasury on the scope to extend and further scale the initiative are in process. The PES was envisaged as a crisis intervention; it has become an 'innovation sandbox' at the centre of government. Part of its challenge is to institutionalise the lessons and mainstream its most successful programmes.

• 15 participating government departments had to step up to design and implement programmes additional to 'business as usual'.
• In the school assistants programme, extensive stakeholder engagement; plus non-state actors designed and delivered training programmes at scale for free
• Social Employment and Youth Service, civil society organisations helped to conceptualise it and are the implementing partners
• Donors supported technical capacity for the PES function within the state.

The direct beneficiaries are participants, whose economic participation is enabled. Further, the whole of society benefits from the reductions in poverty, the social value created, the enhanced productivity from work experience and the trickle-up effects within the economy. Lastly, the PES is also contributing to building a capable state, with the need to deliver in a context of crisis having spurred process and technical innovation.

At present, over 1 million people have participated, with 15 national government departments reporting. 83% of participants are youth and 62% women - all subject to audit and verification. While scale matters for systemic effects, so do qualitative dimensions. Methodologies vary per programme. The schools programme uses survey tools extensively; a study on qualitative impacts on learners is in process. The Social Employment Fund has a digital reporting tool that quantifies work output indicators, supporting measurement of 'social value', with an impact evaluation commissioned. Critical results to measure include:

• Impacts on participants, including psycho-social impacts of participation, formal and tacit skills development, future trajectories.
• Impacts on livelihoods, entrepreneurship
• Social value creation
• Institutional innovations - PES, departments, civil society.
• Stimulus effects in local economies and beyond.

Many challenges were encountered:

• Initially, the PES budget allowed an implementation window of just 5 months in-year. This later changed, but it created 'hostile timeframes' initially that did not allow for optimal outcomes.
• Not all programmes were successfully implemented. Support to Early Childhood Development practitioners faced difficulties where providers were informal, because they could not meet audit compliance requirements.
• The Production Input Voucher scheme had to be suspended for a period because private-sector suppliers were taking a cut of the voucher value.
• Procurement challenges slowed certain programmes down. Some were never implemented.

Some departments were proactive and solved the challenges; others less so. Often, the role of the Presidency was to help trouble-shoot, particularly in relation to transversal challenges; or to hold departments accountable for outcomes. A framework of monthly reporting to the PES created early warning systems.

Conditions for success include:

• Strong political leadership and support from the President; championing of the PES by relevant Ministers; support - and allocation of human resources - from Directors General in key implementing departments.
• A mechanism to drive a strategic vision and provide oversight and co-ordination that had authority at the centre of government
• The allocation of a dedicated budget envelope that enabled scale, coupled with the role of National Treasury in budget adjudication against strict, agreed criteria
• Criteria informed by a clear vision of the potential to use employment to address social challenges and create social value - and a high bar for approval.
• Deep understanding of the institutional context of implementation and what can - and cannot - be delivered under given circumstances.
• A context that meant public officials had to put their hands up for more work - creating a coalition of the willing, committed to making a difference.

The PES has enabled a portfolio approach to the use of public employment for social innovation. The PES mechanism can certainly be reproduced, at national levels as well as, for example, in a city - in both developed and developing contexts. It can target stubborn pockets of unemployment in depressed areas - or be part of a just transition strategy. Criteria can vary depending on context and purpose.

Many of the individual PES programmes can also be replicated. For example, every society has schools, that can provide a high-quality work experience for school assistants, often with a 1:1 mentorship relationship with teachers. It can be used to address particular categories of exclusion within a labour market.

Social Employment can also be replicated anywhere that has unemployment, social challenges and an active civil society willing to manage 'work for the common good'. It's a powerful tool for inclusion - for example, of refugees.

• Unemployment has dire social consequences. Employment and economic inclusion matter too much to society to leave to markets alone.
• Designing for scale is about more than just replication of a project-scale pilot. Scale is enabled by inter alia: use of distributed systems; use of demand-responsive funding mechanisms that are purpose-driven rather than prescribing outputs; whole of society approaches that crowd in capacity.
• Programme management really matters, but tends to be treated as a form of 'leakage'. This can sabotage the quality of outcomes.
• Compliance and regulatory frameworks inhibit the scope for a direct contracting interface between the state and informal grassroots community-level actors. Intermediation is required. It has its risks. They have to be managed in order to resource local agency and initiative.
• 'Make-work' programmes just model unproductive work habits. The quality of the work experience and the outputs from work matter for all outcomes.

Innovation is not a 'once off' - the innovations in the PES build on the work and experience of a history of public employment in South Africa, that could be brought to bear on the immediate challenge confronting the PES, as part of a collective South African contribution to innovation in the public employment space.