Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Department of Social Development
programmes. The Act expressly requires the MEC for social development to ‘provide and
fund prevention and early intervention programmes for that province’ (section 146(1)).
However, a recent analysis of the adequacy of provincial budgets to provide the services
prescribed by the Children’s Act indicates that this obligation imposed on the MEC is not
being met. The report, by Budlender and Proudlock (2010), reviews the adequacy of the
provincial budgets to provide the following services:
● partial care facilities (ECD facilities/crèches);
● drop-in centres;
● ECD programmes;
● prevention and early intervention services;
● protection services (including a support scheme for child-headed households);
● foster care and cluster foster care;
● adoption;
● child and youth care residential facilities.
The analysis tracked the budgeting as far as it was able to do so. The exercise was made
difficult by the fact that current budgets and narratives are not organised or framed so
as to mirror the language of the Act, so it is not possible to determine with certainty
how much has been allocated, or not, to these services. There is an urgent need for an
adjustment in the way that budget figures, narratives and indicators are presented so that
they mirror the language and priorities of the Act.
Despite this difficulty, the report reviewed the budgets allocated to the DoSD’s four subprogrammes,
which together make up the Social Welfare Services Programme:
● childcare and protection (allocated R2.6 billion across the nine provinces in the
2010/11 budget);
● care and support to families (allocated R168 million across the provinces for 2010/11);
● HIV/AIDS (allocated R628 million across the provinces for 2010/11);
● crime prevention and support (allocated R673 million across the provinces for
2010/11).
Budgeting patterns in relation to care and support to families is less than optimistic. The
figures show that allocations to this sub-programme, within which prevention and early
intervention services tend to fall, were on the whole insufficient in the 2008/09 financial
year to fulfil the services required by the Act. The prognosis for 2010 is not any better.
The national average increase in allocated amounts for 2010/11 is lower than national
Treasury’s estimated inflation rate of 6.4 per cent. The increases in the provinces with the
lowest adjustments (the Free State, the Western Cape and Gauteng) range from a negative
–2 per cent to a +3 per cent adjustment. Moreover, the estimated allocated amounts
reduce in the future. This sub-programme accounts for 2.4 per cent of the Social Welfare
Programme budget in 2010/11, but decreases to 2 per cent in the following two years.
The pattern of low and decreasing allocations for this sub-programme indicates an
inability to implement many of the family support programmes required in terms of
the prevention and early intervention chapter of the Act. The report notes that resource
inadequacy in respect of these services is especially troubling, given that prevention and
early intervention services could, over time, reduce the large numbers of children in need
of more expensive child protection services like court inquiries and state alternative care.
This calls for a much bigger investment than is currently being made into prevention and
early intervention services.
75