Spatially referenced ten-year capital investment frameworks that turn your spatial vision into a prioritised, affordable and defendable capital programme.
Capital Expenditure Frameworks
Can I defend my capital budget?
Capital needs arrive from everywhere — master plans, sector plans, asset management plans, community engagements, ward requests — and almost never in a form that allows one project to be compared against another. Budgets are then set on three-year cycles and five-year political horizons, while the infrastructure being funded will shape the settlement for forty years. The result is a capital budget that may be compliant but cannot be defended: no traceable reason why this project was funded and that one was not. A Capital Expenditure Framework closes that gap. Novus3 delineates the functional areas and priority development areas that form the spatial backbone, consolidates every known capital need into a single portfolio with unique identifiers and a standard data dictionary, and scores that portfolio against prioritisation criteria your Council approves before any project is ranked. Ranked projects are then fitted to the affordability envelope from the Long-Term Financial Plan, grant conditions and funding-source constraints — producing a transparent, defendable ranking. Every score is traceable back to the strategic framework that underpins it. You end up with a Capital Expenditure Framework report, an executive summary written as input to your Integrated Development Plan, a confirmed IDP Annexure A, a ten-year and three-year implementation programme per functional area, and an interactive map book with the underlying spatial layers handed over to you. Because the work is system-supported rather than document-only, you can re-run the prioritisation and the budget scenarios yourself in the next cycle — a CEF is not a static document, it reflects a snapshot in time, and this one is built to be updated.
Our approach
- Project Initiation — Governance, scope and programme are confirmed, with an Inception Report tabled within fourteen days of appointment and sequenced against your own IDP and budget time schedule.
- Priority Development Areas — Wall-to-wall functional area delineation is confirmed or refined and a development hierarchy is quantified per priority development area, because areas that function differently should not carry the same priority.
- Portfolio of Projects — All capital demand is consolidated into one register, de-duplicated, given unique identifiers and normalised to a standard data dictionary covering sector, asset class, Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA) classification, implementing agent, location and cost.
- Prioritisation — Criteria, indicators and weights are configured, calibrated on a pilot portfolio and applied, with the prioritisation rationale submitted to Council for approval before results are published.
- Budget Scenario — Ranked projects are fitted to the affordability envelope, Division of Revenue Act grant conditions, funding-source limits and project status, with ring-fencing and fit-with-delay rules where caps are reached.
- Implementation Framework — Ten-year and three-year programmes are analysed by functional area, asset type, expenditure type, ward, financial year and Medium Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework (MTREF) cycle, becoming IDP Annexure A.
- Final Framework and Close-Out — Prioritisation, budget scenarios and analytics are re-run and compiled into the final report, map book and evidence portfolio, with full data handover and recommended institutional arrangements.
Key benefits
- Statutory compliance you can point to: Section 21(n) of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act (SPLUMA) requires a capital expenditure framework for the municipality’s development programmes, depicted spatially — this is that document.
- Grant eligibility protected: The Integrated Urban Development Grant (IUDG) business plan is a three-year capital programme that must align to a current long-term Capital Expenditure Framework, and maintenance of that framework now sits with the municipality.
- Budget and plan finally linked: Under the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), section 17(3)(b), a budget cannot be drafted in isolation of the Integrated Development Plan — projects are classified to mSCOA 6.3 so the framework speaks directly to your financial system.
- Answers for ward councillors and oversight: Every project carries its score, its spatial location, its funding source and its place in the ten-year programme, so allocation questions are answered from evidence rather than from memory.
Why Novus³
- Members of the Novus3 team co-authored the national Capital Expenditure Framework guidelines for the Department of Cooperative Governance, authored the SPLUMA-compliant national CEF standard for the national land reform department, and reviewed the Western Cape CEF guide note.
- More than 50 Capital Expenditure Frameworks delivered, including frameworks for three metropolitan municipalities — the Cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni — and the first-generation frameworks that unlocked IUDG funding for intermediate cities.
- Recognised as Capital Expenditure Framework specialists on the South African Council for Planners (SACPLAN) portal, and the owner of the CP3 (Collaboration, Planning, Prioritisation, Performance) platform on which the work is executed.
- No black-box: the tools, models and data are accessible, agreed with you upfront and handed over for re-use.
Get in touch
Gauteng
Cnr. Lynnwood & Botterklapper St., Die Wilgers, Pretoria, 0081
Western Cape
97 York St, Dormehls Drift, George, 6529