The Department of Social Development, previously the Department of Welfare and Population Development, focuses on welfare grants and on social service policy development and monitoring, while provincial governments are responsible for funding and delivering welfare services and social grants. The Department also aims to enhance governance and cooperative governance in the social development sector over the medium term.

The activities of the Department are organised into five programmes. Social security policy and planning and Grant systems and administration share responsibility for social grants. The first of these is focused on developing an affordable, comprehensive social security system that prioritises the most vulnerable households and improves the coverage of current social assistance benefits. The second aims to improve the efficiency and integrity of the social security delivery system. The programme structure therefore ensures a division of responsibility for policy-making and monitoring, and supporting delivery of grants at the provincial level.

The Welfare services transformation programme is responsible for policy-making on and monitoring of welfare services delivered by provincial governments. Key objectives are to:

• Eliminate racial and geographical discrimination in the distribution of resources and in service delivery
• Enhance the capacity of the national and provincial departments to respond to social development challenges
• Protect the rights of poor people, women, children, youth, older persons, people with disabilities and persons affected by substance abuse

• Deliver services to these target groups in an integrated fashion

The Development implementation support programme is responsible for policy and programme development on poverty alleviation, focusing on the poorest communities. The programme will also lead the Department’s role in the fight against HIV/Aids by developing programmes that contribute towards reducing the incidence of HIV/Aids among vulnerable groups and assist in mitigating the social and economic impact of the disease.

The fifth programme, Population and development, fulfils a support function to the Department and the rest of Government through providing research, policy and planning advice on population and development issues.

Since 1994, the Department has focused on:

• Strengthening administration and reforming the social grant system: The highly fragmented grant system has been unified. The child support grant has replaced the inequitable and unsustainable state maintenance grant. The national Department has led the clean-up of the social grant system to eliminate fraud.
• Strengthening the developmental and preventative thrust of welfare services: Welfare services are being reorientated from expensive curative and institutional models to preventative and community-based models. This approach aims to promote self-reliance among individuals and communities. Pilot programmes include those for women and children under five, and reforms to the juvenile justice system.

These strategic focus areas have required substantial policy and legislative development and amendments in line with the 1996 White Paper on Social Welfare. In particular, the Welfare Laws Amendment Act of 1997 introduced the child support grant. Other significant initiatives include:

• The Non-Profit Organisations Act of 1997 removes the registration requirement for non-profit organisations, creating an enabling environment for better service delivery.
• The Adoption Matters Act of 1998 simplifies procedures for granting legal representation for children and provides for the rights of natural fathers in case of adoption.
• The Aged Persons Amendment Act of 1998, which made changes to the governance of homes for the aged, made non-discrimination a condition of subsidisation and requires reporting of abuse. More comprehensive legislation to protect elderly people is being developed.
• The Social Work Amendment Act of 1998 modernises the regulation of the social service professions.
• The Child Care Amendment Act of 1999 facilitates the establishment of secure care facilities and legislates the prohibition of commercial sexual exploitation of children.
• The Population Policy for South Africa, adopted in 1998, reflects international approaches to population and development. It describes the relationships between population and development in South Africa, and captures the sustainable development aspirations of ordinary people.

• The 1999 financing policy for welfare services provides for a change in the formula for subsidising welfare organisations, from subsidising social work posts and unit costs to financing services provided by the non-government sector. The phasing in of the policy commenced in April 1999 and it is expected to be fully operational by 2003/04. The policy requires clear standards of services or norms for service delivery.

From 1997/98, the Department embarked on initiatives aimed at improving the delivery of social security and welfare services, and piloting developmental approaches. These include the programme on the Transformation of Child and Youth Care Services, the Flagship Programme for Women and the Victim Empowerment Programme.

The Department has also received a sizeable portion of the national allocation for poverty relief since 1997/98, resulting in a significant upward adjustment to the size of its budget. Since 1998/99, these special allocations and conditional grants have been several times larger than the normal budget of the Department. These initiatives have emphasised the importance of integrating programmes with those of other national and provincial departments in alleviating poverty.

From late 1999, it became evident that the Department required a different approach to its work. Increasing levels of poverty and inequality and the HIV/Aids pandemic demand a collective vision that is more responsive to the structural causes of problems, as well as their social manifestations. Following an intensive process of consultation with a broad range of stakeholders in October 1999, the Minister of Social Development identified ten priorities (The Ten Point Plan) as outlined in the National Expenditure Survey, 2000 to be addressed over the next five years. It has made progress on several of these priority areas during 2000/01:

• The Ministerial Committee to Investigate a Comprehensive Social Security System was appointed and is expected to report in June 2001. The investigation spans from social assistance (social grants) to social insurance (unemployment and health insurance) and benefits such as those in terms of the Road Accident Fund.
• The Department will streamline the management of poverty relief allocations and apply these funds in terms of provincial poverty eradication strategies and plans.

• It will practice support for community-based care for people living with HIV/Aids as part of the National Integrated Plan for Children Infected and Affected by HIV/Aids.

During 2000, the Minister of Social Development undertook a programme of provincial visits to assess the state of service delivery in the area of social assistance (pensions), welfare services and poverty relief projects. The visits highlighted the following key operational and policy concerns, which the Department intends addressing during the short and medium term:

• The payment of pensions by private contractors requires significant improvement.
• There are problems with respect to the reregistration of pensioners.
• Effective implementation of poverty relief projects requires capacity building at the community level.
• Provincial welfare infrastructure, such as pension pay points and administrative offices, is in need of upgrading.

• Appropriate programmes targeted towards communities affected by HIV/Aids, especially Aids orphans and child-headed households, should be implemented soon.

As the Department of Social Development fulfils mostly a policy-making and monitoring role while provinces fund and deliver services, its normal operating budget is fairly small at around R70 million per year. Since the mid-nineties, the Department has, however, received substantial "special allocations", as well as conditional grants for provinces. While some special allocations were for integrated programmes with other departments (such as Victim Empowerment) the largest were from the special allocation for poverty relief, infrastructure investment and Job Summit projects. These allocations and underspending with regard to them has led to fluctuations in budgets and expenditure as can be seen from Table 17.1.

The underspending between 1997/98 and 1998/99 is explained by the Department’s building of capacity and systems to spend funds responsibly and effectively. The following year saw a dramatic improvement in spending on poverty relief programmes (up from R10 million to
R212 million) with some slowdown in the spending rate in 2000/01 as approaches were being reconsidered. Over the medium term, the Department has decided to reduce the quantum of spending on poverty relief projects in order to focus on effectiveness. It has been allocated smaller amounts for this purpose. This, together with the phasing out of conditional grants to provinces, explains the decline in spending, which averages 19,4 per cent a year between 2000/01 and 2003/04, compared with an average growth rate of 37,8 per cent a year between 1997/98 and 2000/01.

The 2001 Budget increases the medium-term allocations for the core budget to the Social Development Vote by R54,2 million in 2001/02, R57,3 million in 2002/03 and R47,4 million in 2003/04 to make provision for the disaster relief fund, strengthen the social grant delivery system and improve financial management. The overall decline against the baseline by R85 million in 2001/02 is due to the spreading of the poverty relief programme over a longer period. The increase of the baseline of R157 million in 2002/03 consists of the poverty relief allocation of R100 million, Social security R45 million, Disaster relief R10 million and inflation-related adjustments R2 million.

The major change in the composition of expenditure is the growth in the relative importance of the Grant systems and administration from 4,6 per cent in 1997/98 to 32 per cent of expenditure in 2000/01. This was due largely to the use of conditional grants to provinces for improving the social security system. While programme expenditure declines significantly over the medium term, the programme remains a core part of the Department, consuming 25 per cent of departmental spending in 2003/04.

The decline in professional and special services over the next three years reflects the completion of conditional grant programmes and the use of contractors on special projects. Significant growth on personnel expenditure (an average of 7,9 per cent a year over the next three years) is to build critical capacity in the Department.

The Department of Social Development is a policy-making department. Departmental receipts, such as the interest on debt, cancelling of uncashed cheques, parking for senior managers, and breach of study contracts are the main revenue sources for the Department. These amounts are R300 000 for 2000/01, R310 000 for 2001/02, R320 000 for 2003/04 and R330 000 for 2003/04. The departmental receipts were deposited into the National Revenue Fund.

The Administration programme aims to conduct the overall management of the Department. The programme includes policy formulation by the Minister, Director-General and other management members. Other activities include organising the Department; providing centralised administrative, legal and office support services; managing departmental, personnel and financial administration; and determining working methods and procedures. In addition, the Administration programme provides for the purchase of vehicles for departmental use, as well as for allocation under the subsidised motor transport schemes.

The Department was restructured last year to enable it to deliver on the strategic priorities outlined in the Ten Point Plan. The new structure strengthens the line functions of the Department, especially in social security, and facilitates integrated programming and implementation within the Department and in collaboration with other departments.

Administration comprises an average of 19,7 per cent of the Vote over the medium term. Comparison with Budget 2000 estimates shows a slight reprioritisation in favour of this programme, following on strong growth of nearly 13,4 per cent a year from 1997/98 to 2001/02. This growth was due mostly to centralising management support in the Administration programme. Spending growth, however, slows to an average of 3,7 per cent a year over the medium term, owing to stagnation in expenditure on corporate services. Personnel expenditure dominates this programme.

The programme develops, coordinates and facilitates the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and strategies for social security, and facilitates financial planning in line with national macroeconomic goals and developmental objectives. It comprises five subprogrammes:

• The Social insurance and Social assistance subprogrammes develop and facilitate the implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes for social insurance and social assistance. They also facilitate the evaluation and review of these policies and legislation. Social assistance focuses on social grants and Social insurance on unemployment and health insurance.
• Finance and economics is a new subprogramme, which focuses on developing policies and strategies for the financing of social development services in line with Government’s macroeconomic goals and developmental objectives.
• Contributions provide for transfers to international organisations and congresses, in particular the International Social Security Association.

• Administration is responsible for the overall management of the programme

During 1998/99, an interdepartmental Committee reviewed existing contributory and non-contributory social protection schemes and found major gaps in the coverage, as well as inefficiencies and overlaps. The need to research the feasibility of a basic income grant was also identified at the Jobs Summit in 1998. In May 2000, Cabinet appointed a Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System to develop a framework and policy options for social security in its broad sense of social protection. An Inter-Ministerial Committee comprising Health, Transport, Labour, and Treasury under the lead of Social Development, oversees the work of the Committee. The Committee of Inquiry is expected to present its report to Cabinet in July 2001.

The Department has also reviewed existing policies on foster care, HIV/Aids, disability and the application of social assistance. Recommendations include:

• Standardisation of social assistance application processes in the different provinces
• Development of appropriate polices on the review of eligibility of beneficiaries
• The use of review panels for assessing disability applications in rural areas where there are no district surgeons

• Standardisation of the different children’s grants to remove the perverse incentives of the current system.

The Department has completed the policy review of social grant beneficiary eligibility, which commenced in December 2000. The Department intends to deliver on the remaining amendments during 2001.

The Disaster Relief Board and the State President’s Funds for victims of terrorism and for victims of violence were amalgamated in 2000 to ensure that maximum effort is invested in disaster relief, which accounts for the largest proportion of victims. The funds of the three Boards, however, need to be amalgamated to improve efficiency.

The provision of social security services rests with the provincial departments of welfare, while the role of the national Department is to develop policies, norms and standards. During 2000, the Department embarked on a project to develop comprehensive norms and standards for social security. These norms and standards will set out the quality and quantity of services to be provided by all parties in the service delivery chain. It will also set basic standards to ensure compliance with the Social and Economic Protocols required by the South African Commission on Human Rights and Batho Pele, and will facilitate more accurate costing of social security.

Spending on the Social security policy and planning programme declines by an average of 40,4 per cent a year over the medium term, as the main function of the programme in policy formulation. Higher spending in previous years and the current year is because the programme included a conditional grant to provincial welfare departments to facilitate the implementation of the child support grant.

During the past two years, call centres were established in order to assist people with accessing grants and clearing problems with regard to payments. The national Department’s call centre is fully operational and an average of 133 calls are responded to per day. The provinces are in the process of upgrading their facilities. The Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Northern Province have toll free numbers and the centres are managed by one or two persons. They are responding to an average of 60–100 enquiries per day.

The appointment of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System should substantially advance thinking and policy on poverty and marginalisation. The staffing of this section of the Department has also been strengthened. Together with the separation of policy and monitoring responsibility from actual payment and delivery, this should allow improved analysis of social security trends. As is clear from expected outputs above, key policy recommendations can be expected in the near future.

The Grant systems and administration programme aims to design, facilitate the implementation of and maintain systems and services to ensure that efficient and effective services are provided to beneficiaries. The programme comprises four subprogrammes:

• Grant administration works towards the effective and efficient payment of social grants.
• Grant information systems maintain appropriate information systems in support of Grant administration.
• Social security audit provides for an effective monitoring and audit of Grant administration to detect fraud.

• Administration is responsible for the overall management of the programme.

Since the amalgamation of the 14 different grant payment systems in place in 1994, a number of initiatives have been taken to improve delivery and payment of grants. A review of these efforts concluded that insufficient attention was being given to the administration, monitoring and evaluation of the social grant system, which accounts for approximately R18 billion of expenditure each year. In restructuring the Department, a decision was made to separate the policy functions from the administrative side in order to ensure adequate attention to all areas and to integrate all activities related to payment systems and administration. This led to the establishment of the Grant systems and administration programme.

Correct sequencing of the different initiatives is critical. The Department has therefore decided that:

• The various initiatives must be integrated into a single re-engineering programme.
• The Socpen system must be replaced as a matter of urgency and a new system should be operational within the next 12 to 18 months.
• While work should continue on the development of the Welfare Payments and Information Service, this is a medium- to long-term project that needs to be informed by the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System.
• Deficiencies in the administration of social security at the provincial level, identified by the audit of the reregistration process, must be corrected.
• A facility for monitoring and auditing social security must be established in the Department.

• Finalisation of the national norms and standards must be accelerated, as these will serve as a basis for the design of new systems and procedures, and for monitoring service delivery.

There was rapid growth in allocations to this programme up to 2000/01 (mostly conditional grants to provinces). In addition there is a strong upward adjustment of the 2000 Budget Estimate in 2001/02 and 2002/03, to improve service delivery and information systems, as well as efficiency and value for money. The dominance of professional and special services indicates the need to hire expertise to design strategy and systems in this area.

This is a new programme, amalgamated from different portions of the Department in its former structure. A key achievement has been the appointment of advisers to support the Department in re-engineering the grant delivery system and designing the new Welfare Payment and Information Service.

Under the guidance of this division and with the assistance of the conditional grant for this purpose, the phasing in of the child support grant has also gained momentum. Beneficiary numbers increased from 172 461 in November 1999 to 803 229 in November 2000.

This programme aims to facilitate the transformation of welfare services to deliver effective and appropriate developmental social welfare services. It focuses on developing and implementing service standards and rights advocacy programmes. Activities are organised into the following subprogrammes:

• Service standards focus on developing and facilitating implementation of service standards for developmental social welfare services in order to monitor the quality of service delivery and guide the financing of all social welfare services.
• The Rights advocacy programmes in respect of children, youth and families develop and implement programmes to ensure that the rights of children, youth and families in particular are promoted and protected.
• The Rights advocacy programmes in respect of other vulnerable groups develops and implements programmes to ensure that the rights of specifically vulnerable people, including older persons, persons with disabilities and persons affected by substance abuse are protected and promoted in social development programmes and services.

• Contributions are made to a number of international organisations and congresses, including International Social Services, involved in research and promotion of social welfare.
• Administration is responsible for the overall management of the programme

After a review of its developmental welfare services, the Department found that progress on the transformation of welfare services had to be accelerated and that the promotion and protection of rights of vulnerable groups required attention. Furthermore, these programmes, for example, the Flagship Programme for Women and social crime prevention, were fragmented from the Poverty Relief Programme and integrated development initiatives. This has been corrected in the restructuring of the Department.

The process of developing new comprehensive child care legislation commenced in 1998 under the auspices of the South African Law Commission. The existing Child Care Act of 1983 is deficient in terms of the provision of the Constitutions and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Recent developments, such as the issue of Aids orphans, have delayed the finalisation of the legislation. The target is to finalise legislation in 2001. The increase in child abuse and neglect, and the fragmentation of related services and institutional arrangements prompted work on the development of a comprehensive policy on child protection.

The Department is a partner (with South African Police Services, Justice and Correctional Services) in the integrated justice system, which is aimed at streamlining the management and tracking of offenders and victims through the justice system. Implementation of this work will continue in 2001. The Department continues to work closely with the Police on the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act of 1998, and on the issue of rape and sexual offences. Emphasis will be placed on monitoring the social development sector’s implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women during 2001.

The Committee of Inquiry into Abuse, Neglect and Ill-Treatment of Older Persons, established by the Minister of Social Development in April 2000, has conducted a wide-ranging inquiry and public hearings. The report of the committee will have implications for policy and legislation with regard to older persons.

Expenditure on Programme 4 declined by an average of 7,8 per cent a year between 1997/98 and 2000/01. It continues to decline at an average of 18,4 per cent a year over the next three years. These declines are due to the completion or partial completion of spending on special projects, specifically the Secure Care Project and the Victim Empowerment Project.

A number of initiatives benefiting older persons were undertaken during 2000, including amendments to the Aged Persons Amendment Act; development of a draft Bill on the Status of Older Persons; drafting the South African Declaration on Ageing; and piloting of assisted living and community-based care for older persons.

The programme aims to develop, implement and monitor strategies for poverty eradication, combat HIV/Aids, and undertake community development and public-private partnerships. The programme comprises five subprogrammes:

• Poverty eradication directs poverty alleviation efforts, mostly through developing, managing and coordinating income generating projects.
• The HIV/Aids programme contributes towards combating HIV/Aids by ensuring the availability of integrated programmes for prevention and for coping with the impact of the disease on households and communities.
• Community development contributes towards maintaining the well-being and social integration of vulnerable individuals, groups and communities through specific programmes.
• The Public-private partnership programme encourages the emergence of new welfare service providers, the extension of services to rural areas, and improved governance and funding in the sector.

• Administration conducts the overall management of the programme.

The social development sector, Government and non-government, has made a concerted effort in the fight against HIV/Aids. Women in Partnership Against Aids, youth awareness campaigns, poverty alleviation projects to support communities affected by HIV/Aids, the piloting of community-based care approaches, and the National Integrated Plan for Children Infected and Affected by HIV/Aids are some examples of interventions by the sector.

There is, however, a need for a more urgent response. The social and economic consequences of the HIV/Aids pandemic pose daily challenges to the sector. It occurs within a context of high levels of poverty and inequality, violence against women, children and older persons, and other social pathologies associated with poverty. The sectoral framework for social development’s response to HIV/Aids identified the following focus areas:

• Provision of a range of social grants and services to support people affected and infected by HIV/Aids
• Reducing the risk of HIV/Aids among young people
• Promoting and protecting the rights of people affected by HIV/Aids, especially Aids orphans
• Establishing strategic partnerships with non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations, the business sector and civil society
• Institutional reforms, including enhancing the capacity of officials to respond effectively to HIV/Aids, developing an appropriate welfare infrastructure and improving service delivery

• Improving policy-making and programme planning through research, monitoring and evaluation of interventions, and dissemination of information

The Department contributes to the sectoral strategy for HIV/Aids, for example, through the Social assistance, Poverty eradication, Rights advocacy, Community development and Population and development research subprogrammes. Over the past three years, the Community development subprogramme has focused on payments to poverty relief projects. The social development approach requires the strengthening of communities and community-based institutions to address issues of poverty and related social problems. It also requires strong intersectoral collaboration (at national, provincial and local level) and engagement at the international and regional level. The Department also intends evaluating the impact of the various community development initiatives implemented over the past two years, for example, the Flagship Programme for Women.

The Department of Social Development is responsible for administering the Non-Profit Organisations Act of 1996, which regulates the operation of non-profit organisations. The Department is also responsible for the payment of subsidies to national councils. With the administrative systems now in place, the Department will monitor non-profit organisations with respect to governance issues, and build the capacity of emerging non-profit organisations. The Department will also continue its contribution to important Government initiatives such as the work of the National Development Agency, the recommendations of the Katz Commission on extended tax benefits to non-profit organisations, and the establishment of the distribution agency for welfare organisations’ funding from the National Lottery.

Allocations for poverty relief projects dominate this programme. Fluctuating expenditure up to 2000/01 is the result of delays in disbursing money and implementing projects. The decision to reduce the poverty relief allocation to the Department over the medium term was taken in order to focus limited capacity on increasing the impact of projects and on monitoring expenditure and impact more closely. Poverty relief allocations total R50 million in 2001/02, R100 million in 2002/03 and R71 million in 2003/04.

The Department of Social Development is relatively small and initially struggled to spend its poverty allocation, which started with R40 million in 1997/98 and nearly doubled its budget. In 1999/00, with the assistance of the Independent Development Trust, an amount of over
R200 million was disbursed to projects. Monitoring was also in place to track financial flows and outputs.

The Department’s component of the national integrated plan against HIV/Aids, focused specifically on piloting approaches to home-based care, has been successfully launched and will expand in the current financial year.

The Flagship programme is the developmental programme for unemployed women with children under five years. Fifteen pilot projects were managed and maintained in the nine provinces. The current number of participating women is 867 and the number of children is 946. The training provided in the pilot programmes covers practical skills such as hair dressing, hospitality and early childhood development training, as well as skills in project management, financial management, life skills, literacy and numeracy.

The Population and development programme aims to facilitate changes to the determinants of South Africa’s population trends, so that these trends support sustainable development in the country and southern Africa. The programme comprises the following subprogrammes:

• Population and development strategy focuses on advice to policy-makers and planners on a range of population and development issues, training government officials on HIV/Aids integrating departmental strategies on migration.
• Population and the development research reports on the annual state of the South African population, the impact of HIV/Aids on the population and the causes and consequences of migration.
• Contributions provide financial assistance or make payments to organisations such as the Regional Institute for Population Studies and the United Nations Population Unit.

• Administration is responsible for the overall management of the programme.