Issued by: Ministry of Welfare & Population Development
MINISTER'S NOTES FOR THE SECOND READING DEBATE OF THE SOCIAL WORK AMENDMENT BILL IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
The Social Work Amendment Bill marks a radical shift away from previous social services practices which were embedded in an apartheid and discriminatory paradigm to a system based on transformation and the principles of democracy.
This Bill proposes:
This legislation will establish a Council for Social Service Professions which will be responsible for the promotion and improvement of the quality of services provided, the quality of education, the integrity of the discipline, knowledge development and the advancement of social justice through the promotion and enhancement of developmental social welfare. Implicit in the developmental social welfare approach is the restoration of dignity to the people in the operation of the social security system and in equipping consumers of the service with The capacity to take charge of their own destiny.
This approach requires a different form of service delivery. For this reason, the constitution of the new council is intended to drastically change its compositions by incorporating occupational groups within welfare who were previously not recognised and regulated and by standardising procedures for the constitution and regulation of the council. This will ensure adequate protection of the public interest which is not provided for in the current Act.
The amendment of the Act is also intended to facilitate transformation of the council by placing greater emphasis on professional practice, transparency, democracy, equity, community need and involvement as well as to comply with the mandate contained in the amendments to the Social Work Act, 1978, passed by this Parliament in 1995.
Madam Speaker, it is envisaged that the new Council will have a hybrid of elected and appointed members and will consist of not less than 19 and not more than 34 members. The members will be constituted as follows:
Madam Speaker, the process to transform the social services sector started in 1996 with the inception of the South African Interim Council for Social Work. The main task of the Interim Council was to oversee the establishment of a new Social Services Council. We have now reached the point where the Interim Council will case to exist the day before the first meeting of the new council takes place.
In addition to the above, the Bill provides for the establishment of professional boards for workers in the social services sector. In the past there has been an over-reliance on social workers and there is a need to expand human resource capacity through the employment of other categories of social service personnel, such as child and youth care workers, community development workers, probation workers and social development workers. The Bill will provide for the establishment of professional boards for the categories of workers in order to regulate the education, training and practice of these disciplines. This will bring the profession in line with the vision for social welfare outlined in the base document of the RDP and the White Paper on Social Welfare as the legislation being introduced today will accord all social service workers their rightful status and place them within the same regulatory framework that were limited to social workers in the past.
Madam Speaker, while the Social Work Amendment Bill is proposing sweeping changes which will transform social service delivery in South Africa, the Bill by itself will not bring about the desired changes unless people in the sector accept the need to transform and work towards this goal. People in the social services field need to ensure the transformation of the curriculum so that persons are trained in the new paradigm of developmental social welfare and they also have the added challenge of ensuring that the new categories of workers are appropriately trained. Organisations in the social welfare sector need to make provision for the wider range of expertise.
Social workers who have been to date the only workers recognised in the field should not see this Bill as a threat to their existence but rather an opportunity to take the lead in the commitment to transformation. The transformation of the Council will mean that scarce human and other resources are distributed more evenly as there will be more workers available to do the vast amount of work which is required to be done.
At the beginning this month at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit we committed ourselves to addressing the needs of the people. I believe that this Bill goes some way towards that goal.
What we should note in conclusion, Madam Speaker, that regulation for the sector through the new Social Services council is critical. The main reason being that regulation is designed to protect the public from unethical or substandard practice.
For consumers, the regulation of the professions provide two important protections, which we should strengthen when we draft the regulations. Firstly, legal regulation sets up standards for competent practise and consumers/beneficiaries know what to expect. Secondly, if those standards are not upheld, regulation give consumer the power4 to lodge complaints that can result in sanctions or disciplinary actions against members of the respective board.
I would like to thank the Portfolio Committee, under the leadership of the Honorable Comrade Cas Saloojee, for steering this bill through the parliamentary process noting the tight time constraints. I also wish to express appreciation for the inputs by the committee in strengthening the Bill.