Report of the Portfolio Committee on Women, Children,
Youth and People with Disabilities on the strategic plan of the Department of Women, Children and
Persons with Disabilities (2011-2015) and the budget vote for financial year
2011 -12, dated 1 June 2011
The Portfolio
Committee on Women, Children, Youth and People with Disabilities, having
considered the strategic plan and budget vote of the Department of Women,
Children and Persons with Disabilities for 2011-12, reports as follows:
1. Introduction
The strategic
plan and budget of the Department of Women, Children and Persons with
Disabilities were referred to the Portfolio Committee on Women, Children, Youth
and People with Disabilities on the 09 March 2011 for consideration and
reporting. The Committee, in performing its constitutional mandate, engaged
with the Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities on the 16
March 2011. The Department also presented its strategic and operational plan
for 2011/12. The Committee held a workshop with the Department on the 25 May
2011 to further discuss the mandate, the strategic and operational plans of the
Department.
2. Briefing by the Department on the Strategic Plans and Budget
for 2011 – 2014 and budget for
2011-12
The Director –
General of the Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities
presented the strategic plan and budget of the Department for financial year
2011 – 2012. The Director of each branch i.e. women and gender equality,
children and people with disabilities presented operational plans for 2011-12.
2.1 Policy
Priorities for 2011/2012
The aim of the Department of Women, Children and
Persons with Disabilities is to drive, accelerate and oversee government’s
equity, equality and empowerment agenda on women, children and people with
disabilities, especially in poor and rural communities. In order to achieve
these aims, the activities of the Department are divided among the three
designated socially vulnerable groups:
• Women, Empowerment and Gender Equality;
• Children’s Rights and Responsibilities; and
• Rights of People with Disabilities.
More specifically, the Department aims to:
• Collaborate with civil society to ensure conditions for integrated
transformation in the three sectors;
• Improve government’s capacity to align planning across the three spheres
of government;
• Monitor policy implementation and the realisation of sector specific
targets for attaining the national goal to halve poverty and unemployment by
2014; and
• Develop global partnerships to strengthen the development of women,
children and people with disabilities.
In order to achieve these objectives, the Department
endeavors to undertake the following policy imperatives:
• Promote the realisation and protection of the rights of women, children
and people with disabilities;
• Coordinate, collaborate and partner with all government departments,
publicly funded bodies, organs of civil society and the private sector to
ensure that issues related to gender, people with disabilities and children are
integrated into all government programmes and results are shown in this regard;
• Set norms and standards for the social, political and economic
transformation necessary for achieving national goals and implementing
policies;
• Monitor and evaluate the performance of government departments, publicly
funded institutions, organs of civil society and the private sector;
• Accelerate the implementation of international obligations on the rights
of women, children and people with disabilities to which
• Advance international cooperation and partnerships for the promotion and
protection of gender equality, equalisation of opportunities for people with disabilities and children’s rights;
and Initiate and facilitate the implementation of research and programmes for
the empowerment of women, children and people with disabilities.
Over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)
period, the ENE highlights that the Department has prioritized engagement in
research and collaboration with other Government Departments, entities and
stakeholders that share its vision for
2.2 Performance
and Service Delivery Information
The Strategic Plan of the Department for 2011 to 2015
highlights that the Department is not a service delivery Department but rather
works with other Government Departments in order to influence, monitor and
evaluate how these impacts are being made. This in turn presents a unique challenge in
that the Department will have to exercise sufficient influence over other
government departments in order to achieve its aims and objectives as set out
in its Strategic Plan.
In relation to performance and service delivery for
the 2010/2011 period, the ENE notes that progress in establishing the
Department was slower than expected as a result of a lack of human resources
and financial capacity. This impacted on
the ability of the Department to achieve deliverables during the previous
financial year. Indeed, the Department
only started operating as a separate entity from November 2010.
3. Strategic Objectives
The
department’s strategic objective is aligned to the following programmes and
sub-programmes structures:
3.1 Programme 1: Administration
The purpose of
the programme is to provide support to the Minister and the department with
effective leadership, management, strategic planning, financial management and
corporate support to ensure that it delivers on its mandate in an efficient and
sustainable manner. The programme received R34, 183 million for financial year
2011/12.
The purpose of this programme is to provide effective
leadership, management and administrative support services to the Minister and
other branches in the department. The programme received R
34.183 million during the 2011/2012 which represents 29 per cent of the
Department’s budget.
3.2 Programme 2: Women Empowerment
and Gender Equality
The purpose of this programme is to facilitate national and
international instruments into empowerment and socioeconomic development
programmes as well as overseeing and reporting comprehensively on the national
realisation of women’s rights and the progressive realisation of equality. The
main strategic objectives of this programmes aim to:
·
Mainstream women’s empowerment and
gender equality considerations into government’s policies and governance
processes;
·
Monitor and evaluate the mainstreaming
of women’s empowerment and gender equality considerations into government’s
policies and governance processes; and
·
Coordinate institutional support and
capacity development programmes.
The Department aims to achieve these objectives through
three sub-programmes:
The Programme received R64 629 million for financial year 2011/12.
R55 150 million will be transferred to the Commission for Gender Equality.
3.2.1 Policy
and Planning for Gender Equality
In terms of Policy and Planning for Gender Equality, this
sub-programme aims to conduct research and analysis on gender related issues to
develop appropriate legislation that is sustainable and can be
implemented. The ENE notes that in terms
of institutional capacity, this sub-programme has a staff complement of 5 that
is expected to increase to 24 over the MTEF period. To this extent, a budget allocation of R 10.1
million over the MTEF period has been allocated to this sub-programme, of which
60.5 per cent will be used for the compensation of employees. In terms of
budgetary allocations for this sub-programme, R2, 814 million has been
allocated for the 2011/2012 financial year. The Committee raised concern with
regard to how sustainable this programme is in light of the fact that more than
half of the programme budget has been allocated to the remuneration of the
staff complement. Moreover, the
Committee wanted to know the extent to which the Department would be able to
achieve its mandate in light of the limited budget available for
programmes.
3.2.2 Mainstreaming and
Capacity Development for Gender Equality
The Mainstreaming and Capacity Development
sub-programme seeks to integrate activities and create synergy among government
departments, civil society and the private sector, while the business unit of
this sub-programme aims to undertake consultations with lead departments to
mainstream women empowerment and gender equality in government programmes and
national priorities. The sub-programme has been allocated R 13.7 million over
the MTEF period and R 3.766 million for the 2011/2012 financial year. 59, 6% of
the budget has been allocated to the compensation of employees.
3.2.3 Monitoring and evaluation
The Monitoring and Evaluation and Research for Gender
Equality sub-programme tracks the delivery on constitutional, regional and
international mandates by:
• implementing the sector specific performance tracking system;
• verifying sectoral performance evaluation and comprehensive reporting
systems;
• ensuring that a research protocol is developed; and
• monitoring compliance with national and international instruments.
These systems are aimed at monitoring the way in which the South African
Government meets its international and regional obligations that pertain to the
promotion and realisation of gender equality. This programme has been allocated
a budget of R 10.6 million over the MTEF period and R 2.899 million for the
2011/2012 financial year. The Department has allocated 59.4 per cent of the
sub-programme budget for the compensation of employees.
3.3. Programme 3: Children’s Rights and Responsibilities
The purpose of this programme is to ensure the realisation
of children’s rights and responsibilities by:
The Children’s Rights and Responsibilities Programme has been allocated R
35.7 million over the MTEF period and R 9.6 million for the 2011/12 financial
year.
The Department has identified the three sub-programmes, namely:
3.3.1 Policy
Planning and Planning
This sub-programme has been allocated a budget of R
10.5 million over the MTEF period of which 60.8 percent will be utilised for
the compensation of employees. A total
of R2. 807 million has been allocated for the financial year 2011/12.
3.3.2 Mainstreaming
and Capacity Development
This sub-programme has been allocated a budget of R 14.5 million over
the MTEF period of which 60.8 percent will be utilised for the compensation of
employees. R2. 893 million has been allocated for 2011/12.
3.3.3 Monitoring and
Evaluation
This sub-programme has been allocated a budget of R 10.8 million over
the MTEF period of which 60.5 percent will be utilised for the compensation of
employees. The Department has been
allocated R3. 866 million for financial year 2011/12 for this sub–programme.
3.4 Programme
4: Rights of people with disabilities
The purpose of the programme is to facilitate the translation of national
and international instruments into empowerment and socioeconomic development
programmes. In addition, this programme intends to oversee and comprehensively
report on the national realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities
and the progressive realisation of equality. This would be achieved over the
MTEF period by:
Programme
4 has been allocated R 35.2 million over the MTEF period and R 9.6 million for
the 2011/12 financial year. However, as with all the Department’s other
programmes, more than half of the programme’s budget is allocated for the
compensation of employees leaving very little for programme implementation as
per the Strategic Plan.
3.4.1 Policy and Planning
A
total of R10.4 million was allocated to this programme for the MTEF period of
which 60 per cent will be used for the compensation of employees. R2. 808 million
has been allocated for financial year 2011/12. The staff complement is expected to increase from 7 to 18.
3.4.2 Mainstreaming and Capacity Development
for Equalisation for Persons with Disabilities
This sub-programme has been allocated a budget of R 14.2 million over
the MTEF period and R3.9 million for financial year 2011/12. The Department
indicated that it would implement a poverty strategy for persons with disabilities
and develop a national disability agenda under this programme.
3.4.3 Monitoring
and Evaluation
This sub-programme has been allocated a budget of R
10.7 million over the MTEF period.
The Department also indicated that it intends to comply with
treaty obligations under the Monitoring and Evaluation sub -programme. The
Department indicated that it will continue to meet the 2 per cent employment
target for people with disabilities under this sub-programme and has developed
a strategy to deal with the target.
The Department indicated that within this sub-programme
the spending focus over the MTEF period will be only formulating an economic
empowerment policy, developing a monitoring and evaluation framework,
establishing a database, developing disability indicators and compiling the
initial country report on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities.
4. Observations
Having met with
the Department to scrutinize the strategic plans and budget, the Committee made
the following observations:
4.1. The Department has not resolved the issue
related to its mandate, which is a concern as it has a direct impact on the
performance of the Department in terms of envisaged programmes and activities.
4.2. There needs to be
alignment between the operational and strategic plans of the Department.
4.3 The Department’s objectives within its strategic plan were too
broad, with no specific
time-frames and related costing. Moreover, the performance indicators did
not always coincide with the stated objectives.
4.4 The Committee welcomed the fact that the
Department is in the process of developing the Gender Equality Bill which will
enforce the implementation of the
programmes related to women. However, the Committee reinforced that the
Department is mandated to also address matters related to children and persons
with disabilities and as such should also initiate the development and monitor
the implementation of legislation and policies for these target groups.
4.5 The Committee noted with concern that at
present South Africa has developed good legislation however the key challenge
remain in its implementation and requisite costing and resourcing.
4.6 The Department reported that it has been
moved from the Governance Cluster to the Social Cluster in as far as the budget
is concerned by National Treasury. The Committee raised the concern that it was
unclear as to what the reasoning for the shift in Clusters was attributed to.
4.7 The Committee expressed concern that the
Department did not present its Annual
Performance Plan (APP) as this should be in line with the operational plans and the strategic plans for
2011-2015.
4.8 With regards to the location of the Department, the Committee noted that the role of the
Department for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities in relation to
other Departments is not clear in terms of the authority vested in this
Department when monitoring the policies and programmes of other Departments pertaining
to women, children and persons with disabilities.
4.9 The Committee is unclear as to what the
existing synergies are between the programme and activities of the Women’s
Empowerment and Gender Equality and that of the Commission for Gender Equality.
5. Recommendations
Having considered
the budget and strategic plans, the Committee recommends as follows:
Report to be
considered.