The Statutory Quality Assurance Body for HR



A Brief History

After the establishment in 1982, the Board immediately began working towards statutory recognition. A draft Personnel Practice Bill was published 4 October 1985. The then Minister of Manpower declined to table the Bill in Parliament.

In 1998 the Board started a series of meetings with the different organisations in the HR field with a view of attaining statutory recognition for human resources. A series of conferences "HR Crossroads" were held in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban which addressed questions critical to the future of HR practice in South Africa. These conferences were addressed by Government, Business, Academia, IPM, HRCOSA and SABPP. A Bill was drafted and widely circulated. The HR fraternity was clearly in favour of this step and support was expressed by bodies such as BUSA and NEDLAC. The Bill was never tabled at Parliament.

To consolidate the position of HR in the new NQF environment, the Board then applied for ETQA status and was accredited by SAQA in November 2002. The SABPP is currently one of the few ETQA's that receive no part of the levy funds to fund its ETQA service to the country.

The SABPP therefore has statutory status as the quality and standards body for human resources in South Africa under the SAQA Act.