Date: 28/03/2007

Source: Department of Social Development

Title: Skweyiya: Social Development Dept Budget Vote 2007/08

Budget speech by Dr Zola Skweyiya, Minister of Social Development, to the National Assembly, Cape Town

Madam Speaker
Honourable Deputy Minister
MECs for Social Development here present
Honourable Members of Parliament
Distinguished guests
Representatives of civil society in the public gallery
Ladies and gentlemen

A year ago, to the day, I stood before this House to deliver Budget Vote 18 in what was characterised as an Age of Hope. In this year's State of Nation Address, we are encouraged to guide the nation towards the greater good, towards the renewal of pledges and affinity that affirm our humanity and dignity. Actions towards the greater good and solidarity are central to the mandate and the vision of the department which endeavours to contribute to the fostering of a caring society.

This year's Budget, Vote 17, therefore, continues to build on the renewal of pledges with our people and national partnerships necessary to build a better life for all. As this government is half way through its term of office, it is imperative that we mobilise partnerships within and across all sectors of society in order to continue implementing the 2004 mandate of the electorate.

Madam speaker, the post-apartheid democratic South Africa continues to make great strides in improving the quality of the life of its citizens. The government strives towards the realisation of the country's vision as set out in the Constitution. Since the advent of the democratic government, the South African economy shifted from a trend of declining growth rates in the last decade of the apartheid era to current levels of about 4,9% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Government's investment in its people, including social spending has grown significantly over the years.

Notwithstanding all these positive developments and progress towards improving the quality of life of South Africans, much still remains to be done. The impressive economic growth rates alone have not proved sufficient to eradicate the extent of poverty in our society. A large part of the poor and unemployed still remain outside the safety net. Poverty continues to persist in levels that are of great and immediate concern.

Madam Speaker, this budget vote affirms the programme activities set out in our strategic plan geared at meeting the expectations of those of our people, who continue to live in abject poverty. Over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), government has set aside a total additional allocation R683 million to meet these expectations through social grants transfers, integrated development programmes, comprehensive social protection and developmental welfare services. The total budget grows at an average rate of 8,3 % per annum. The department's budget, excluding transfers to South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the National Development Agency (NDA), grows at an average rate of 27,5% per annum.

Madam Speaker, as a key element in government's overall objectives to eradicate poverty, to promote social inclusion and build social cohesion, the Department of Social Development continues to build and strengthen its strategic interventions in social welfare services, community development, and comprehensive social security.

Development of Welfare Services

The Social Development Sector is faced with enormous social challenges resulting from systemic poverty, unemployment, inequality and other social ills associated with such phenomena. Our ability to deal effectively with these social ills is made difficult by the fact that community development and welfare services are, by their nature, labour intensive. This is so in the face of significant shortages in the supply of social service professionals required to deliver these services. High workloads and inadequate working conditions of social workers, for example, lead to burnout and poor quality of services. Effectively, insufficient numbers of social workers impose a limitation on our ability to meet service delivery demands and consequently, impact negatively on our ability to fulfil our statutory obligations.

Thus, Madam Speaker, the expansion of developmental welfare services requires a dedicated focus on human capital development. The need to significantly increase the numbers of social workers, social auxiliary workers and community development practitioners has become very crucial. The need to capacitate these categories of workers in order to enhance the quality of the services they render cannot be overemphasised. In addition to these efforts, we have approved and are implementing the recruitment and retention strategy for social workers aimed at addressing the terms and working conditions of this professional category of workers in order to stem the tide of skills flight and their exodus from the profession and the country. The strategy will be regularly updated and extended to include other categories of other social services professionals.

I note with concern that some universities such as Wits, are considering closing down their Schools of Social Work at a time when there is a great need for such professionals. It is worth noting that many of these social work schools were established at a time when the past government was concerned with providing social work services for poor whites. The new government now has to meet the needs of the entire population and invariably needs the support of all academic institutions to train more social workers.

In this regard, the department will, over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, allocate R365 million to train new social workers and use additional resources to develop the capacity and skills of social workers already within the system. This will be done through the provision of scholarships and training opportunities throughout the MTEF period. The success of these interventions will largely depend on meaningful integration amongst all spheres of government, including tertiary and private sector based institutions, including Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

During financial year 2007/08, the department will allocate resources to improve social welfare service delivery by implementing the Older Persons Act of 2006, the Children's Act of 2005 and the Child Justice Bill. We will also work with both houses of Parliament to finalise the processing of the Children's Amendment Bill. These pieces of legislation require the state to progressively extend services to older persons, improve the protection of children and set up systems for the management and care of children in conflict with the law.

Extra capacity for developmental social welfare services will be created to promote social integration and the protection of individuals, families and communities so that they can function optimally within society. Such extra capacity will also assist in the implementation of social crime prevention measures in order to create a conducive environment to address the challenges of management of children in conflict with the law.

In terms of contributing to government wide social development initiatives, our responsibility in the Social Sector Cluster as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) includes expanding access to Early Childhood Development and Home Community Based Care and the development of social partnerships with NGOs.

We will intensify our focus on Early Childhood Development In addition, our overall involvement in the Expanded Public Works Programme will contribute to skills development and the creation of work opportunities. These services will be supported by social grants to children. The department's initiative will have as its theme, 'tackling child poverty through Early Childhood Development and Social Grants.' Intensifying our efforts in these areas will lead to long-term benefits and improvements in the lives of future generations of South Africans.

The department will strengthen its efforts to contribute to measures to combat HIV and AIDS. Our programmes will include prevention programmes and providing care and support services to people affected by HIV and AIDS. We have just completed a database of maternal orphans up to the age of 13. This will go a long way in assisting the department and its implementation partners to ensure that these children receive proper care. These services will be undertaken and implemented in partnership with NGOs including Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) and Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs).

Madam Speaker, the Deputy Minister will elaborate further on our interventions pertaining to welfare services, particularly on the treatment for and management of substance abuse and other programmes geared at supporting the most vulnerable in our communities, i.e. women, people disabilities and the aged.

Community Development

The department strives to build and promote sustainable livelihoods within communities. Improving the livelihoods of people means ensuring that individuals and families have access to the assets, income and basic services. This approach will necessitate partnerships with other government departments, especially local government and civil society organisations.

As part of the broader community development mandate, the National Development Agency contributes towards economic growth and poverty eradication. This is done by promoting social "entrepreneurship" in targeted communities. It mobilises communities, Community Based Organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations, Faith Based Organisations and traditional leadership, around the importance of leveraging opportunities created by government and other role players. During the financial 2007/08 the National Development Agency will receive a transfer of R129 million to its budget as a contribution towards the fulfilment of its mandate.

Social Security

Madam Speaker, in response to poverty, inequality and destitution, government has focussed its efforts on expanding the social assistance safety net over the past decade. The number of beneficiaries of social assistance has increased from about 3,5 million in 1999 to 12 million today. Over eight million children now have access to social assistance. These include 7,8 million children benefiting from the child support grant, close on 395 000 benefiting from foster care grant and over 95 000 benefiting from the care dependency grant. More than 2,1 million elderly people receive the old age grant and 1,4 million people receive the disability grant. Expenditure on social security increased from R36,9 billion in 2003/04, that was 2,9 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to a projected R73 billion in 2009/10, constituting 3,1 percent of GDP).

Growth in the disability grant has tapered off to ensure its ongoing sustainability. In a related development, we will soon present policy options to Cabinet for people with chronic diseases to address this gap. A new disability assessment tool was piloted recently with a view to standardising disability assessments. This tool will ensure uniformity in the assessment of disability, thereby contributing to more efficient management of disability benefits.

Last year we completed a study on incentive structures in the social assistance programme. The preliminary outcomes of the study dispel assertions that our social assistance programme encourages teenage pregnancies, that children are fostered for the purpose of accessing grants and that people with disabilities harm themselves in order to continue accessing social grants. We should now focus on the benefits of social assistance and comprehensive social security programmes for the long term growth and stability of our society.

Madam Speaker, over the past 10 years, we as government have recognised the need for a comprehensive approach to poverty reduction; especially for our children. Last year, Cabinet discussed and agreed to improve the efficiency of social grants for children and to link grants with access to basic services such as education and health. This strategy will bring together Social Sector Cluster departments from education, health and social development, for a start. In the medium term, will be further consolidated to include housing and access to free basic services. This will require strategic partnerships at all levels.

My department, the South African Social Security Agency, and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) have finalised a working agreement that spells out plans to work together to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the child support grant; link social grants with access to education, health and other basic services. This agreement will result in significant donor funding to ensure that we improve access to early childhood development and education by children.

During the course of the year we initiated the standardisation of the provision of social relief of distress. These benefits provide welcomed relief for those who suffer sudden loss or hardships. Madam Speaker, in our ongoing endeavours to enhance social cohesion, solidarity, well-being, equality and rights we will make real the following in the forthcoming year. The value of all social grants will increase above the level of inflation. The old age, disability and care dependency grants will increase by R50 to a value of R870, the foster care grant will increase to R620 and the child support grant to R200.

During the past year we assessed the gaps in the comprehensive social security system. These gaps reveal a need for an expansion of social security provision. Going forward, we will continue to consolidate our programme of social assistance. We will therefore make every effort to register an estimated 750 000 eligible children for the child support grant believed to be still outside the system. In addition, Cabinet has approved that we investigate the desirability of in-cash and in-kind measures to support vulnerable children older than 14 years.

Last year, in this House, I made several commitments to work towards a comprehensive social security system. These commitments are in line with decisions made at the Mafikeng and Stellenbosch conferences of the African National Congress (ANC). These measures encompass dealing with outstanding issues of social health insurance, expansion of the quality and reach of unemployment benefits, reform of the road accident fund provisions and a significant broadening of coverage of compensation for occupational injuries and diseases. We will work to ensure that these social insurance matters are addressed and a comprehensive system of social security is in place by 2010.

To achieve the reform measures, Cabinet has approved the establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Committee on the reform of social security. The Department of Social Development will strive to provide expertise on the social policy aspects of social security reforms. A part of our work relates to a Review of Retirement provisions, completed by the end of June 2006. The review brought to the fore that over six million employed South Africans do not contribute towards retirement savings and will over time become dependent on the state provided old age pension. For those who do qualify, the quality of benefits accrued proves to be insufficient. There is a need to review the generous subsidies provided to middle and high income groups and investigate a more fair and equitable regime. The administration costs of retirement savings in South Africans are the highest in the world.

Madam Speaker,

The recommendations we have made, which have been incorporated into the governments agenda, relate to the need to remove the means test for the old age pension, the introduction of mandatory system of retirement and portability of retirement benefits. The benefit design must truly reflect a system of solidarity, which is the South African cultural thrust of the spirit of Ubuntu. In addition, there is a need to set up a government Sponsored Retirement Fund that will also ensure integration of the delivery of all social security benefits. To this end, in pursuance of a standing decision of Cabinet, the Social Security Agency will be restructured accordingly to ensure appropriate governance and capacity to deliver social insurance benefits.

The social insurance reforms, which include the retirement system, will be the most significant social policy changes since 2004. We will ensure that we engage with members of the Tri-partite Alliance, the religious community, NGOs and CBOs and all South Africans in this important endeavour.

Madam Speaker,

I am glad to announce that the agency establishment process is proceeding in accordance with our plan as contemplated in the Social Cluster Programme of Action. The Agency has taken over full responsibility and accountability of the administration and payment of social grants within all nine provinces. The current administration system for the payment of social assistance grants has been reviewed by the agency and reforms are being implemented to:

* create the possibility for agency to pay grants to beneficiaries on any day of the month and anywhere in the Republic of South Africa
* enable the agency to pay social grants to beneficiaries in conditions that fully uphold their dignity
* enable the agency to protect the confidentiality of the grant beneficiary data
* eradicate the fraud in the payment of the social grants that the agency has identified and assist the partnerships with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and the Scorpions in arresting criminals and stamping out fraud in the system.

Furthermore, the agency is considering a new proposed strategy on payment services that considers the Cabinet decision of making the Post Office, through its Post Bank, as the appropriate payment services mechanism for social grants.

During 2006, the agency piloted a new management information system in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Northern Cape and Western Cape, which demonstrated:

* A reduction in litigation by potential beneficiaries.
* A reduction in the turnaround time for the processing of applications for social assistance from 90 days to one to three days, in most instances with applicants being issued with a letter within a few hours indicating the outcome of their application. The further roll out of the system in all regions will take place during the 2007/08 financial year.

The review of the grants payment information system has been finalised and the following solutions are considered:

* The further enhancement of the social grants payment information system and the implementation of an integrated fraud prevention and risk management system. This is expected to commence during 2007.

The agency has procured 90 fully equipped mobile offices with appropriate technology to render services in remote rural areas, so as to bring services closer to the beneficiaries. The transfers to SASSA for both administration and grant transfers will be R66,6 billion in 2007/08 growing to R78 billion 2009/10.

Sector Strategy and Governance

Madam Speaker, since the bulk of our services are implemented through a partnership model, there is a need for an effective monitoring and evaluation system. This will support service delivery at the implementation level and ensure effective oversight over the implementing agencies including provinces and NGOs.

The department will in the coming year initiate processes towards establishing an integrated information system on welfare services in order to support service delivery. This will ensure proper environmental and situational analyses that inform policy development and review.

Social policy and regional social policy

As part of strengthening our interventions and making sure that our policies are effective, efficient and meet the department's objectives, we have adopted the evidence-based policy making paradigm. As part of our efforts to improve the quality and rigour of research and policy development we have established partnerships and collaborations with the universities both at home and abroad, including: KwaZulu-Natal, Fort Hare, Venda, Pretoria, Stellenbosch and Oxford.

International developments in the area of research and policy making and policy implementation have highlighted the value and relevance of bringing in 'research evidence' in policy making and implementation. We have established a programme to drive this effort in the department. We have taken steps to share the advantages of this evidence-based social policy in the Southern Africa region. A draft Southern African Development Community (SADC) Regional Social Policy endorsed by 11 Ministers of Social Development is currently being further strengthened and will be tabled at the Labour and Social Affairs Commission of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa in April.

Madam Speaker, I conclude the Budget Vote 17 by emphasising that the Department of Social Development will seek to put children at the centre of service delivery. I am disturbed by the rate of child abuse, neglect and exploitation in the country. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to all mothers and parents who have recently lost their children to horrendous acts of violence.

The department will contribute to efforts to mobilise communities to take a firm stand against violence and other crimes against children. While the justice system must deal with perpetrators, individuals, families and communities have to be able to protect children. This includes the provision of safe houses for children in need of care and protection. The long term prosperity of our democracy is dependent on the investment we make now in our people, especially our children and those that care for them. The basket of services and initiatives in this budget vote seeks to facilitate such investment.

Madam Speaker let me conclude by extending my heartfelt appreciation to our Deputy Minister Dr Jean Benjamin, the Members of the Executive Committees for Social Development, the Director-General, the CEOs of the Public Entities and all staff in the department and agencies for their hard work and support.

I thank you

Issued by: Department of Social Development
28 March 2007