Differences between the Child Support Grant Top-Up and Foster Care Grant, DSD briefing with Minister

Meeting report

The Chairperson asked the Committee Secretary to flight the agenda and note the apologies.

Ms Lindiwe Ntsabo, Committee Secretary, indicated that the Parliamentary Legal Advisor, Adv Nathi Mjenxane, would not be part of the meeting as he had been seconded to attend the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence meeting. That would affect the agenda of the day’s meeting and the Members would have to discuss the matter when the agenda is adopted.

The Chairperson asked which items would be affected.

Ms Ntsabo answered that the Committee deliberations and consideration of inputs on the Fund-Raising Amendment Bill, would be affected. The matter would have also impacted the Motion of Desirability, if there were legal issues that arose from it. It was important for legal support to be present whenever the Committee is dealing with legislation.

The Chairperson asked if that meant there was only one item on the agenda.

Ms Ntsabo replied that there were two items on the agenda. The Committee would be receiving a presentation from the South African Social Service Agency (SASSA) and the Department of Social Development (DSD) on the differences between the Child Support Grant Top-Up and the Foster Care Grant. The second item is the consideration of the 3rd Term Committee Programme.

The Chairperson presented the agenda to the Committee and asked for the views of the Committee on the agenda because the Committee had not been aware that Adv Mjenxane would not be available.

Ms B Masango (DA) made a recommendation about the apology of Adv Mjenxane. If the Committee went ahead with the Fund-Raising Amendment Bill and had deliberations, it could be left with the inputs that required further clarity at a legal level. The Committee could stand that over until there was a Parliamentary Legal Advisor present. If the Committee had the Department’s legal advisor on the platform, then she was sure that the discussion could ensue. The issues that specifically needed Parliamentary legal advice could be stood over.

Mr D Stock (ANC) said he was partly covered by Ms Masango on the Fund-Raising Amendment Bill. It was going to be a challenge if the Committee was going to deal with such contentious legal issues while lacking legal advice. That matter had put the Committee in a difficult predicament. He proposed that the item be different to the next meeting so that the Committee Secretary could get a hold of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor including the legal advisor from the Department so that everyone could speak with one voice.

He was of the view that if the Committee would receive the presentation, then, there would be only one legal advisor from the Department and the one from Parliament would not available. If there were legal issues or legal advice that the Committee would need, that would be a problem. If that happened and the Members agreed that it had to be postponed and deferred to the next meeting, where would that leave the Committee on the issues that would have been discussed on the day?

He proposed that in the absence of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor, the Committee defer that item to the next meeting so that the Committee could deal with it in totality. The Members would be able to apply their minds and there would be legal advice on standby. He proposed to the Committee that in other pieces of legislation, which were before the Committee, for example the Children’s Amendment Bill, the Committee had also been struggling at some point in terms of legal services from Parliament. The Committee had to postpone about three Committee meetings where Adv Mjenxane had not been available. The reasons for Adv Mjenxane’s unavailability were unknown. Adv Mjenxane might have been overworking himself or have been overcommitted in terms of other responsibilities at a Parliament level.

He proposed that a letter be written to raise the concerns of the Portfolio Committee to the manager who was responsible for the legal services in Parliament. If Adv Mjenxane was overcommitted or was overworking himself, then “the work of the Committee must not suffer”. There had to be somebody who was dedicated to dealing with the work of the Committee.

The Chairperson thanked Ms Masango and Mr Stock for their contributions. The Committee would adopt the agenda as it had been requested by the Members. The agenda has been amended and the other item would be deferred to the next meeting.

Mr Stock moved for the adoption of the agenda.

Ms Masango seconded the adoption of the agenda.

The agenda was adopted with amendments.

The Chairperson handed over to the Minister to make introductory remarks.

Minister’s Remarks

Ms Lindiwe Zulu, Minister of Social Development, said that the Department had continued to do its best and the people of South African had continued to do their best to make sure that the state of children in South Africa was taken very seriously. The condition of children, in general, was taken very seriously. She raised the issue of children in general and the constitutional provisions of the Government in taking the responsibility for children. Everyone, including the Government, the private sector and civil society needed to take responsibility for children.

Children needed to grow in a better environment and the Government needed to do everything it could to make sure that children grew in better environments. The meeting would be dealing with the difference between the Child Support Grant Top-Up and the Foster Care Grant. The Child Support Grant, including the Child Support Grant Top-Up, Care Dependency Grant, and the Foster Child Grant were important instruments for social assistance in South Africa. Those grants were the largest provisions of South Africa’s social assistance programme. The programme had been well designed and well implemented. It had a substantial impact on poverty, inequality, nutrition and education.

The programme responded to the 2030 country vision of the elimination of income poverty and reducing inequality.

In April 1998, the South African Government introduced the Child Support Grant which replaced the limited State Maintenance Grant that had benefited a few children based on race. It was important to make note of that because sometimes the steps that had been taken towards being all-inclusive and ensuring that race did not become an issue when it came to the support of children and the citizens. The aim of the Child Support Grant was to ensure that the primary caregivers of children living in extreme poverty could access financial assistance to supplement household income. The Child Support Grant took the form of a cash transfer of R100 per child for all poor children under the age of seven years, paid monthly, and was incremented over the years. Currently, a child was eligible until their 18th birthday.

It was worth noting that for children, especially those who came from poor backgrounds, it became a problem when they turned 18 and while some of them were still at school, they did not get the kind of support they were supposed to get. Since 1998, the Government had made a concerted effort to increase the reach of the grant and the number of beneficiaries had risen dramatically. The overview of the Foster Child Grant and the key differences between the Child Support, the purpose, the means test, the scope, the recipients, the termination of the grant age, the Foster Grant, and challenges would be presented by the Department. The overview of the Child Support Grant Top-Up, with a decision that was taken and approved by the Cabinet in 2015 as the first step towards designing a comprehensive legal solution for the crisis in the foster care system. All the other issues that covered the entire process would be presented by the Department.

The Chairperson thanked the Minister for representing South Africans, showing her commitment, and prioritising attending the meeting. The Chairperson handed over to the Department to make the presentation.

Briefing by the Department of Social Development on the differences between the Child Support Grant Top-Up and the Foster Care Grant

Dr Maureen Mogotsi, Director: Children and Family Benefits, Department of Social Development, briefed the Committee on the differences between the Child Support Grant Top-Up and the Foster Care Grant. The presentation highlighted the challenges that the Department had had with the Foster Child Grant and the North Gauteng High Court Judgement. The presentation also provided an overview of the top-up, its targets, the documents used for beneficiaries to apply for the top-up as well as implementation issues. The presentation noted that over 5000 applications had been processed by the Department for the Child Support Grant Top-Up. Currently, the Child Support Grant was valued at R480. The Care Dependency Grant was valued at R1980, and the Foster Child Grant was valued at R1070.

Key differences between Child Support Grant and Foster Child Grant

The Child Support Grant’s primary objective was to ensure that the primary caregivers of children, up to 18 years, living in extreme poverty could access financial assistance to supplement household income. Just over 13 million poor children were in receipt of the grant. The Child Support Grant was a poverty alleviation grant.

The Foster Child Grant primarily served to provide financial support to the foster parent for the care of a child, up to 21 years for those in secondary schooling or tertiary education, who had been placed in his/her care in terms of the Court order issued by the Presiding Officers of the Children’s Court. The objective of the grant was not primary poverty alleviation but to ensure that the children who needed care and protection were well taken care of by the State.

Foster Child Grant Challenges

• Approximately 80% of the children were orphans in the care of relatives and in need of financial assistance rather than the intensive protective support which foster placements were intended to provide.
• That placed a tremendous strain on the foster care system, with the excessively high numbers of children and caregivers who had been entering it, leading to the creation of administrative bottlenecks.
• The grant had led to the exclusion of large numbers of children who needed intensive protection services and had left the system unable to maintain its monitoring and renewal of court-ordered foster placements.
• Critically, that had also resulted in the exclusion, from the Foster Child Grant, of many of the children who had been unable to access the system because of overcrowding, delays, and inequities in the administration of the relevant processes.

North Gauteng High Court Judgement

• In 2011, the North Gauteng High Court required the Minister of DSD to design and implement a comprehensive legal solution to the crisis in the foster care system.
• The foster care system at the time was servicing 550 000 children, the majority of whom had been orphans living with relatives.
• The system was not able to keep up with the demand for new applications and the two-yearly children’s court order extensions that were required for each foster care placement.
• Social workers were overwhelmed with very high caseloads for foster cared which limited their time to provide protection services to children in need of care.

Introduction of Child Support Grant (CSG) Top-Up

• After rigorous consultations, the CSG Top-Up was proposed by the Department as the first step towards a solution.
• The policy was not a new grant but rather it had built on the existing CSG system in the form of a ‘top-up’ amount.
• The policy was approved by Cabinet on 09 December 2015.
• The aim was to increase the CSG amount for orphans and children heading and living in child-headed households; and introduced a higher value for CSG (50% on top of the base Child Support Grant).
• The value was determined by the Minister of the Department in concurrence with the Minister of Finance from time to time.
• Access to the provision would require neither a court process nor the associated heavy social work process for placement. That was a requirement for the Foster Child Grant.
• However, in order to ensure adequate care and protection, social workers would still need to monitor the families.

Target group and recipients

Implementing the Child Support Grant Top-Up for two categories of children:

• orphans in the care of relatives.
• orphans in child-headed households in terms of section 137 of the Children’s Act.

People who can apply for the grant for orphans and children in child-headed households were:

• Relatives like a grandparent, brother, sister, uncle, aunt or cousin of the child.
• A child who was 16 years and older (but under 18 years) and who was caring for his or her siblings after the death of one or both parents, also qualified for the CSG and the top-up for themselves and their siblings.

Discussion

Ms L Arries (EFF) said even though Dr Mogotsi had indicated that the Department had gone out and informed people about the extended Child Support Grant, it was not doing enough, specifically in the rural areas. There were local radio stations that could be used to access the people who did not have the grant. The presentation had showed that foster parents were only allowed to have six children, that had to be six children per household not per foster parent. In some situations, in one household there was a foster parent who was the mother of the house and then the daughter was also a foster parent – the situation created problems. What was the backlog of the Foster Child Grant? Had the Department had enough social workers in order to ensure that the backlog of the Foster Care Grant was addressed?

Ms A Abrahams (DA) said that she was still a little confused as to why, for years, the Committee had been getting a theory lesson on the differences between the grants. It was difficult to get the real bread and butter issues on the agenda as the Committee was listening to theory as opposed to listening to the real situation and the practical figures on the ground. What had the practice note contained? When foster parents came to SASSA or the social worker, were the parents still given the option to choose between the Top-Up Grant and the Foster Care Grant, since there was still a difference between the amounts.

She asked if it was SASSA or the social worker that made the choice for the foster parent on whether the parent would be receiving a Foster Care Grant or a Top-Up Grant. She noted on slide 21 that the figures being looked at were from 29 July, being presented on 24 August meeting. When the Department came with presentations, it was important that it came with the most recent figures and statistics. The Committee would have to, at a later stage, receive the updated figures from slide 21 for August, because the Members were interested in the most recent statistics. The presentation had to mention how far the Department was on its policy of linking the Child Support Grant beneficiaries to the Government’s basket of services. There had been lots of talks about the policy, yet the Committee was still waiting to have feedback on it.

She wanted information on how the Top-Up Grant was being marketed and communicated to residents. The slides had not communicated how SASSA and DSD were advertising the Top-Up Grant. It was three months until November and the High Court deadline, the Committee could benefit from a presentation titled ‘Comprehensive Legal Solution’. The Department’s complete comprehensive solution was yet to be seen, noting that the year was three months away from November. The Department’s presentation had been theory-based and would apply in an ideal world, however, the Committee needed to know the real situation on the ground. Every presentation that spoke of the Foster Child Grant needed to come with a slide that showed the backlogs in each province. It was a slide the Committee had had before and one that had been requested every single time. A picture needed to be given of each province in terms of the backlog. The Committee was dealing with foster care again and that slide was missing from the presentation.

Ms P Marais (EFF) said that she was a bit confused. She had been to the Department about a month ago with a grandmother whose daughter had passed away three years ago. The grandmother had two children staying with her and was receiving SASSA money, but there were issues with the children’s transport to school because they had to move to Bloemfontein almost three years ago. The grandmother was just getting the SASSA money, so she was taken to the Department. For the adoption grant, the grandmother had gone to the police station and had done everything that was required, but the social worker had not mentioned the option of getting the top-up.

She said it seemed like the people were not aware or were not being made aware of all the options that they had. How was the Department going to ensure that the entire Department, social workers, and everyone knew about what had been implemented and how would the Department ensure that the people on the ground floor knew? In practice it looked good, but on the ground, the people were not aware of these things. How was the Department going to make sure that in rural areas the people knew about the grant? People were struggling out there. It looked like the social workers had not even understood their roles. It was like the social workers were doing the people a favour. It seemed like the social workers sent people from one department to another, to the police station, and back. It would be nice if the information about the grants could be sent to the departments, the social workers and everyone so that when people got there, they would not be confused. That information was very important and needed to be taken to the community so that the community could understand what was really going on.

The grandmother had just needed some money to assist with the school fees and the transport since her pension money could not cover all that. The presentation had been very informative, but it was important to ensure that the people got more information about what options they had.

Ms J Manganye (ANC) said the presentation was good even though it was late. The graph was dropping because people were not aware of the options the Department had in terms of the Top-Up Grant. The Department had to make sure that in all the provinces those grants would be made available as people had not known about them. The Port St. Johns offices had not been opened since Covid and that was why the people who were eligible could not apply. The Department had to ensure that its offices were open. If a person took a taxi to town, going to the offices only to find out the offices were not opened, then that person would not go back again because the money he/she had was that little.

She said some men had fathered children from women who came from, for example, Lesotho and those children had been struggling.  When the children went to Home Affairs with the father and mother, they were told that they could not get the grant because the mother was not yet a South African citizen. Why were other neighbouring countries like Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Botswana flocking to South Africa when it was pension date and then going home? Their children were no longer staying in South Africa, but they were still enjoying the benefit of the children of South Africa, while they were in their country. Was there no system to check if such persons only came to South Africa towards month end and then went back after two days, especially the children getting the grants?

Ms Masango said the Department’s presentation had clarified the differences between the various grants. She asked that the Department to further clarify the role that section 150 played in the solution that had been spoken about, especially as the Committee spoke about the Top-Up Grant. How was the Department, more especially the Child Protection Directorate, planning to train social workers on the Top-Up, as it was new, would have to happen? The concern was that the social workers may not have been briefed or trained on how the whole thing would work out. There were a number of queries from the ground that had been outstanding for some time, wherein there was no understanding what was going on.

She asked what the plan was to train social workers on the Top-Up. When, if at all, would the Committee receive the Regulations? The Committee was not part of the Department but the regulations flowed from the laws that were made by the legislators. The issue of the Committee catting up on the Regulations and having to explain to people how things worked and how the Regulations were linking to the legislation was getting to a point where one was found wanting whenever those questions were posed by the public. Was there a process or a procedure that said the members of the Committee would have access to the regulations before they got to the public after they got to the public for comment or whenever?

The Chairperson said the information that was presented was behind schedule and the meeting had to have happed long ago. She asked how the Department had managed to circulate all of the information to the communities.What had the Department done? The reality of the matter was that the Committee had little knowledge about the Department’s programme on the Top-Up Grant which had started in 2015.

Ms Brenda Sibeko, Deputy Director General: Comprehensive Social Security, DSD, said the Members would recall that when the Department was doing the amendment to the Social Assistance Act two years ago in 2020, the clause that had enabled the current provision was introduced at that stage in 2020. After the passing of that legislation, the Department then had to do the Regulations. It was the Regulations that were now being implemented with respect to the Top-Up Grant.

She said it was important to state that although the policy had been brewing for a very long time the Department could not implement it until it had funding for providing the actual top-up. The funding had only been provided in the current financial year for the Department to be able to implement the Top-Up Grant. The Department had only started implementing the Top-Up Grant from 1 June. There was a slow take up in the beginning because the grant was new. The Department had started training, both from the social security side and with the welfare services, in order to bring social workers on board and that was an ongoing process. Those were early stages, because the Department was only in the second month of the implementation of the new Top-Up Grant. The Department had expected that it would not be a very high take up initially.

The Department had noted the comments of the Committee and would be taking up ideas such as, using radio channels to promote the top-up grant and reach more people. The primary motivation, in terms of the comprehensive legal solution, was on ensuring that the Department reduced the burden on the social welfare system, of having children trying to apply for the Foster Child Grant while they were not in need of care but were in fact staying with their families. When a child lost parents, the preferable solution was that the family (the blood relatives of that child) would have to take on the care of that child, rather than for the child to be in the foster care system. However, many of those families struggled to support the additional children because of the levels of poverty in the country.

The motivation for the top-up was about increasing the support to the families who took on the children who were not their own biological children but were part of the extended family. The foster child system was primarily about looking after children who were orphaned and who were also vulnerable in the sense of not having access to care or were care in need of care in terms of the Children’s Act. More resources of social workers could be spent there, rather than on children who were merely in need of financial support. That was the kind of separation that the Department wanted to do.

She said the legislation was quite clear about who qualified for the Foster Child Grant and who would qualify for the Top-Up Grant and the Department was trying to delineate those things. SASSA had been collecting the statistics and was providing the Department with monthly updates. That was why the Department only report on the period ending on 29 July, which was the end of the previous month. The August numbers would be available at the end of August so that the Department could get a sense of how far it was going. Generally, the numbers were collected every month so the Department would be able to provide updated data to the Committee as time went on.

On the question of children from outside the country; the social grants were available to all children and the Department had not discriminated against the children who were from other countries. SASSA had no rules around the length of time that a person needed to be in the country in order to be to access social assistance and the Department was willing to take the Committee through a lot of those provisions. It was important for the Department to ensure that the Committee was up to date. The regulations were available to be provided at any time.

On the training of social workers, this was an ongoing process but the colleagues in welfare would deal with the issue of how social workers were being brought on board in terms of them being able to implement the new Top-Up Grant and how they were dealing with issues of the foster child backlog.

The Chairperson repeated that the Committee asked how the information about the top-up had managed to get to the communities.

Ms Sibeko said that Dr Mogotsi would provide details on that because the Department had been consulting with different communities. The Department appreciated the advice from the Members on approaching radio stations for promoting the top-up to communities; the Department was going to consider the idea.

Dr Mogotsi, responding to the question on the practice note. The practice note gave a broader understanding of CSG Top-Up. The practice note focused on what the top-up was all about and covered the implementation issues. Some of the aspects that the Department had presented on, were contained in the practice note. The new definitions that the Department had added in its Regulations, the target group, the documentation, the application process in detail in terms of what should happen from the entry point of Social Development; all those were in the practice note. The Department knew that many of the families would start at social work offices so the Department started from there.

She said the Department also explained in detail what was supposed to happen when the families arrived at SASSA and the forms that they were supposed to complete. On how the Department communicated the information to the communities, she said the Act was approved in 2020 (in the Covid era) and so the Department held its initial consultations online with both DSD officials as well as SASSA officials. The Department had gone to different provinces to hold consultations on the CSG Top-Up. In the past few months, the Department had tried to cover as many provinces as it could. The Department also used online consultations because with online consultations the Department could invite many people at the same time. The DSD, SASSA as well as colleagues from the welfare section had gone together to provinces so that all aspects of the particular provision were covered.

Wherever the Department went the first presentation it started with was the presentation on the CSG Top-Up. On the previous week the Department was in KZN and a week before that, the Department was in Cape Town. The Department was going on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to the provinces to do as much as it could. As the Members had advised, the Department would also start looking at doing a media campaign on the linking policy, of which a draft was already available.

The Department wanted to present the policy to the Committee after having gotten all the information needed and having received the views of the public. So, since the previous year the Department had embarked on provincial campaigns and consultations. The Department had been to many provinces to consult on the draft policy on linking and intended to come to Parliament in the following year to present it. The Department thought that it would only focus on a few provinces, but it realised that the public had more interest on the policy, so the focus was expanded to cover nationwide consultations. The Department would be concluding the consultation process towards the end of the current financial year. And would start the process of bringing the policy before the Committee.  

Mr Brenton Van Vrede, Executive Manager: Grants Administration, SASSA, responding to the question relating to Port St. Johns, said the office was affected by floods and it had been closed for about a day. The office was open again and functional although there had been some electrical problems which meant that SASSA had to run manual applications at the office, and that had slowed down the services a little bit. SASSA expected that the full functionality would be restored soon.

On how SASSA was trying to reach more beneficiaries, SASSA was looking at trying to analyse the data on the existing CSG Grant beneficiaries over the last couple of years to see which of the children had deceased caregivers. Unfortunately, on the existing database, SASSA did not have a clear marker in terms of whether someone was an orphan or not. However, SASSA was doing some data analytics on that to see if any of the children had had deceased caregivers in the last few years or so or had had their caregivers shift from one care giver to another. Once SASSA had done that, it would then see if it could do some direct marketing via SMSs, provided that the beneficiaries’ details were still relevant or up to date on the system. For SASSA that could be a cheaper form of communication and more direct communication with potential clients for the new grant.

Adv Luyanda Mtshotshisa, Legal Advisor, DSD, responding to the question of whether the Department had dealt with the comprehensive legal solution. The process was underway, as the court had indicated that the Department had to come up with a comprehensive legal solution to address the issues of foster care. The Department was still wondering what that really meant in real life. The court gave some indicators to say that the Minister had to introduce the law in Parliament in order to address the foster care issue and to come up with systems and mechanisms to deal with the issue of a comprehensive legal solution. The Department had prepared the two pieces of legislation, which were the Social Assistance Amendment Act and the Children’s Amendment Act – both of which had been brought before Parliament.

It was agreed in 2020 by Parliament that, the Social Assistance Amendment Act had to pass. The Department had just started implementing that regarding the CSG Top-Up. It needed to be understood that the court in indicating that the Department had to come up with a comprehensive legal solution, cited a lot of role players in that regard, including the President, the Premiers, the MECs, and the Minister. Although the Minister of Social Development, specifically, was to introduce the law in Parliament. A specific answer on whether a comprehensive solution had been achieved or not, could not be provided at the current stage. It was the court that would make that pronouncement to the Department. The Department would be in court this coming Friday for a supervisory hearing to discuss the progress of the comprehensive legal solution.

At the end of the day, the court would either agree with the Department that it had a comprehensive legal solution as per the court order or the court would tell the Department that the solution was not a comprehensive legal one. So far with what the Department had presented to the court, there had been no indication that it had been deviating from what the court order had indicated. The Department was making presentations and reports to the court from time to time and was updating the court on what had been achieved so far, and the Department would rely on the judiciary at the end of the day. The Department had done the spade work in terms of developing the business of legislation, which had been processed. The MECs in the past had come before the Committee to present the systems and mechanisms that were being implemented. The MECs had also been cited in that court order on what they were doing in their respective provinces in order to achieve a comprehensive legal solution. The courts were assisting the Department by accepting the Department’s reports and not indicating that the Department was off the mark.

On the Regulations, the Department had indicated that the Regulations would take time to process, those pieces of legislation were being developed and being presented to Parliament. The regulations would be finalised a month or two after the passing of the Bill by Parliament and after the President had assented to and signed the Bill into law. That would be done so that there was no time lag between the assenting and signing of the Bill into law and the actual proclamation thereof in order to come into the application. There was a draft that was at an advanced stage which would be presented when that time came. The Department had amended that section 150 to ensure that those who were already in the system for foster care would not be affected by the CSG Top-Up, but rather would continue until with it until they were phased out.

Ms Sibeko said that part of the reason the Social Assistance Amendment Act was done with regards to the creation of the top-up was to reduce the burden on social workers on the understanding that there were not enough of them to be able to deal with 500 000 Foster Child Grant applications. The Regulations for the Social Assistance Act had been amended in 2020, those Regulations were complete and available to be shared with the Committee. The Department still had to finalise the Regulations of the Children’s Amendment Act.  

Ms Isabella Sekwana, Acting Deputy Director-General: Social Welfare Services, DSD, on the issue of social workers, said that everyone knew that the Department needed more social workers as a result of the increase in social ills. Social workers were not only dealing with foster care, and the Department was trying to relieve them from dealing with some issues that could be dealt with at a prevention level. Social workers were needed all over, especially in different settings like the school setting. Social workers were even needed in police stations because it was the first point of entry where people needed to engage with social workers. It was on that basis that the Department took an initiative to ensure that it worked with all the people in the sector, all the people who were dealing with social workers to build a case to the National Treasury for the Department to be afforded the resources to employ more social workers.

She said the Department did not have enough social workers to deal with all the issues and the social ills in the country. The Department needed to ensure that its social workers were utilised in a very strategic way. On the six children that needed to be placed under foster care in one household, those children needed to be placed as per household, not as per individuals within the household. That was exactly what was supposed to be happening and the Department was intensifying its supervision to ensure that there was compliance in that regard. The appointment of more social workers would assist the Department, but also the utilisation of other social services professionals to assist in issues of supervision would help. The was a need to come up with innovative and creative ways to deal with the supervision of foster placements. For example, the Department was looking at ensuring that it had group supervisions where the Department would group several households that were in foster care in order to ensure that the work became much easier. That was an issue the Department had to put an eye on to avoid seeing the children being abused. Child protection could not be achieved in a maximum way if that compliance was not looked at.

Ms Neliswa Cekiso, National Director: Child Protection, DSD, said the Department did not have a backlog. All the foster care orders had been valid due to the court order that the Department had had in place. What the Department had put in place was that the social workers had to take all the cases back to court to ensure that all those Foster Child Grant Orders did not lapse simultaneously. The set monthly targets had deviations and some of those deviations had checked back to prior November 2020. When the Department looked at its figures from November 2020 to June 2022 it had 21 616. The projections that were for July to September 2022 were 12 787. The projection for October to November 2022 was 13 310. What the Department saw happening in practice was that those cases had been taken to court. However, if those deviations, including projections, were not extended by November 2022, then there would be a possible lapsing of 47 613 orders. That would happen if those orders were not taken to court for an extension so that they did not all lapse at the same time. In total 47 613, was the figure that was likely to lapse if it was not addressed by social workers.  The national office was doing monthly monitoring to track and check. Where there were challenges with the presiding officers, the Department engaged with the presiding officers. The Department had a planned meeting in two weeks’ time with chief magistrates across provinces so that some of the bottlenecks that were within the Children’s Courts could be looked at.

Ms Sekwana said that she forgot to address the issue of how the Department was going to ensure that it capacitated social workers in terms of the implementation of the top-up. The Department knew that implementation happened at local level. It was important that the social workers on the ground understood what the top-up was, what the processes were that were entailed to ensure that the top-up was being implemented and what it was that the social worker was supposed to do. The Department had started with creating awareness by educating its practitioners. The Department envisioned going deeper at a district level to ensure that social workers were empowered. The availability of circulars with practice notes would be critically important as people could read for themselves as the Department intensified its education at local level.

Ms Cekiso responded to the question on whether foster parents had a choice between the Top-Up Grant or Foster Child Grant due to price difference. A foster parent was a foster parent because of the court order that had been issued by the Children’s Court. That did not make a possibility of having a choice to say one could choose between a Top-Up Grant and a Foster Child Grant. The determination of whether a person would be a foster parent was made through the social work assessment where an assessment was done to determine if a child needed care and protection due to vulnerabilities that the child would have been exposed to. The results of the assessment would be submitted to the for a decision to be made on whether the child would receive a foster placement and be placed with a foster parent. That removed the issue of choice on whether one went for a Foster Child Grant or Top-Up Grant.

The Chairperson invited the Members to make follow-up questions.

Ms Masango, asking a follow-up question on the response from Adv Mtshotshisa on how the Top-Up Grant was linked to the comprehensive legal solution through section 150, said that question had been asked because operationalisation of the actual Act was needed. The Child Protection Services Directorate of the DDG or whomever would oversee the operationalisation law, once it had been passed, as to how the public would be made to understand the linkage to the Top-Up Grant of the comprehensive legal solution. It was not understood why the Department had indicated that the court would determine whether the Department had a comprehensive legal solution or not. It was the Department, and, in the process, Parliament, that needed to bring the comprehensive legal solution in whatever form it took. It would have taken the Department to do whatever research or whatever it was that it had to do. She wanted to be answered on the issue of the link between the comprehensive legal solution and the Top-Up Grant as it happened through section 150, if at all, and at an operational level.

Ms Abrahams said it was pleasant to hear that there was no foster care backlog anymore. She requested that the Committee receive those figures that were presented, in writing, and have that breakdown per province. She asked what was the Department’s budget for the Top-Ups for the current financial year? Did the Department have the predictions for the next two years? Had the Child Protection Directorate written to the provincial HODs explaining the top-up in a circular?

She said that the Member had to be sent the practice note, at the very least. The Department needed to capacitate the Members as part of their communications plan as the Members of the Committee were in regular contact with the members of the public. The Members of Parliament had said that they were being sent from pillar to post and it was embarrassing when the Members of Parliament did not even know what was going on. The practice note had to be sent to the Members and had to be put on the website so that people could have access to information.

She had just visited SASSA’s website and SASSA’s e-services website. At no point - on the websites - was there a mention of the Top-Up Grant. She urged SASSA to have a look at its own website. When the tabs were open on the website, there had to be a tab that spoke to the Top-Up Grant. It was understood that the courts were now in charge of deciding who qualified for a Foster Child Grant. She wondered if an unintended consequence of that would be removing the people’s freedom of choice, while living in a democratic country. Clarity was needed whether a foster care parent, could still receive the Top-Up Grant while still making an application to the court for the Foster Care Grant.

Ms Manganye said that Ms Sibeko knew very well that if the Members were not happy with the information, then they would keep on digging on the ground. The members were the ones who knew that the Department lacked social workers. That was why the Committee was asking if the programme had reached the rural areas. The Department made mentioned two provinces. The problem with the Department was that when it called a meeting, it went to towns. People stayed in rural areas, so the Department had to go there also. The Members would know whether the Department had been to the rural areas. The Members were going to check if the Department was really in the rural areas and not in town because the Department had always briefed the people in town. The people in the rural areas needed to know. DSD and SASSA did not have the capacity in terms of cars that could travel up to the rural areas. The Members had gone to all the provinces to check if the Department was there. The Members needed to be given the information that would help and capacitate the Committee.

Ms Sibeko answered that the Department had started doing quite a lot of consultations and had gone to some rural areas. However, the Department acknowledged that it had not gone to every single rural area in the country. The Department would take note of Ms Manganye’s concern and go to even more rural areas to ensure that the Department was prioritising the places where it was harder to get information. The Department would also empower the members by providing them with the regulations and the practice note so that they also had site of that. The Department took Ms Abrahams’ about the websites and making sure that it alerted people to the availability of the Top-Up Grant.

She said the Department would be able to provide the Committee with the numbers that Ms Cekiso had presented on, in writing. In the current financial year, the Department was not given a specific budget for the Top-Up Grant and the National Treasury had said the Department was allowed to use the savings from the Old Age Grant. Based on the Department’s estimations, the number of people that were likely to claim the Top-Up Grant, would be around 190 000 and the Department would be able to pay up to R500 000 to that effect, for the current year. The National Treasury had only given a specific allocation for the Top-Up Grant in the next financial year and subsequent one. The Department had an adequate budget in the current financial year, just on the savings of the Old Age Grant, to be able to pay for the Top-Up Grant.

She noted that in terms of the Social Assistance Amendment Act, the provision in the Social Assistance Act basically said that the Minister of Social Development together with the Minister of Finance were allowed to introduce an additional amount of money for any grant. That was how the top-up provision was accounted for. The Act said that the Minister could allow an additional amount of money in consultation or with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance. That was why the amount that had been concurred with was 50% of the Child Support Grant. That clause was basically saying that the additional money could be provided for children who did not meet the criteria of section 150 -   which stated that in order to be able to be put in the foster care system, the children had to deemed to need care.

She said the section dealt with children who were deemed to need care. It specifically described what the criteria was for needing care. A child who met that criteria would be taken through the foster care system, but the child who did not meet that criterion, if they were staying with their extended family, they would then be able to apply for the Top-Up Grant without necessarily needing to go through the foster care system. They would be able to apply with their birth certificate, the caregiver’s identity number and the death certificate of the parents. If that information was provided directly to SASSA, then the child or the caregiver would be able to get the Top-Up Grant. Whereas those children who were applying for the Foster Child Grant had to meet the criteria of section 150. In order to meet that, they had to go through the court system and the court would appoint the foster parent, who could then go and apply to SASSA for a Foster Child Grant.

Adv Mtshotshisa responded to the question on the comprehensive legal solution. He said the court order had ordered the Minister to come up with a comprehensive legal solution. At first glance, it was a little unclear as to what was meant by a comprehensive legal solution. What were the building blocks of a comprehensive legal solution? The court tried to unpack it a little bit for the Department to understand by coming up with a comprehensive legal solution which implied that the Minister had to introduce a law in Parliament to deal with the issue of backlog and to come up with systems and mechanisms to address that issue. Not that the court was itself the one that was the final arbiter in that regard, it was a question of the court giving the Department an indication. The final arbiter was Parliament because it was the one that had to process the law which the court had requested the Minister to introduce and which the Minister in fact did introduce. That was the law that Parliament was processing. The Department had finalised the Social Assistance Amendment Act and only the Children’s Amendment Act was outstanding. The Department had an obligation from time to time to brief the court in terms of what the court called a supervisory hearing. The Department needed to provide an understanding of where it was currently, what it was doing and what were the issues. The Department had presented this to the court and there would still be meetings in the future.

One of those meetings would be happening on the coming Friday to present the Social Assistance Amendment Act which introduced the Top-Up Grant, and that Top-Up Grant would be diverting children, as had been explained before, who were living with their families to a Child Support Grant so that there were no huge figures in the foster care system. In that way, the number of Foster Care Grant applications and the cases that were in existence would decrease in the future. Now those children would be focusing on the Top-Up Grant so that was the relationship between that provision that was the Top-Up Grant and the comprehensive legal solution. The more the children who qualify for the for the Top-Up Grant apply, the lesser the burden would be on the foster care system.

Once the burden on the foster care system was eased, then there would be no more issues. The Department presumed that there would be no more challenges of huge numbers and backlog in the future. On section 150, in terms of who was a child that needed care and protection, the Top-Up Grant would also consider that children who were orphaned and who were with their families would be diverted from the system. In that instance, there was a linkage in some sense that those children that were residing with their families then, would not be part of the foster care system.

He said the Members of Parliament were responsible for the legislation that responded to what the court had said. At the end of the day the Department relied on the Members of Parliament to say, “yes, that was the comprehensive legal solution the court had indicated in the order that it granted”. The Department was also engaging with the court to understand that the pieces of legislation that the Department had brought before the Committee, the Social Assistance Amendment Act and the Children’s Amendment Bill, were indeed addressing that which had been indicated. About the systems and process, other role-players like the MECs who had come before the Members in the past to tell it about what their role was in terms of addressing the systems and mechanisms for the reduction of the backlog or dealing with backlog all together in the foster care system. Those presentations had been made in the past and were accepted by the Committee. It was the Committee’s call to make the pronouncement.

Ms Ntsabo said that the Committee was done with the Department. The Committee could then deal with its internal business to consider and adopt the 3rd Term Committee Programme.

The Chairperson said the Department had to be ready to answer any questions that could be posed by the Members in writing or by the communities.

Ms Sibeko responded that the Department would welcome additional questions because it wanted the grant to succeed. The Department would make every attempt to respond to all of them.

The Chairperson said the Department needed to try to do its level best to cascade the information down to the lower levels. It needed to use community radios, papers and even the Members. When the Department gave the Members the regulations, then the members would be able to assist in terms of its constituency offices, but things needed to be clear first. The Members could not be saying something that they were not sure of.

Consideration and adoption of the 3rd Term Committee Programme and minutes

The Chairperson asked for the 3rd Term Committee Programme to be displayed.

Ms Ntsabo gave some background as to how the Committee went about drafting the programme. The House Chairperson for Committees had provided the focus areas to all the Committees in a particular quarter as to what issues the Committees needed to focus on for that quarter. The Committee’s programme was informed by that focus area from Mr Frolick. The Committee was now in the 3rd quarter. That was the quarter before BRRR. In terms of Parliamentary focus area, legislation had to take precedence. The Committee needed to prioritise legislation, the annual reports as well as the section 32 reports which were the quarterly reports as that informed the BRRR. There were several outstanding issues like the one of the Top-Up Grant. There was also a long-standing petition of Ms Masango. There was also an issue that the Committee needed to be briefed on, the action plan of the Auditor General (AG). All of those issues that were in that Parliamentary Committee Programme, the Committee had prioritised the focus area as well as the issues that had been outstanding since the Committee was busy with the Children’s Amendment Bill. The Committee took its cue from the focus areas and prioritised accordingly.

The Chairperson asked if there was any comment from the Members on the programme that had been tabled before the Committee.

Ms Abrahams understood that the Committee’s priority was legislation. She said the Members had sat through a training session last week and Parliament’s capacity challenges had come up in several sectors. There the Members saw Parliament’s capacity challenges that were directly affecting the work that the Committee had to do. While the Members accepted the apology, it could not be that if the Committee’s priority was legislation that when it did legislation there was no Parliamentary Legal Advisor. The items that the Members were putting forward to appear on the schedule were then coming in second to legislation. However, when legislation was on the agenda then the Committee did not have a Parliamentary Legal Advisor. The Committee was going to be focusing on legislation and it really needed those legal advisors in the meeting so as not to delay the Committee.

She had raised, in the previous term the issue and the report on social workers and had accepted the explanation given. The Committee had heard again that social workers were a burning issue that was affecting the Child Protection Services and different welfare programmes. The Committee had not had a conversation with the Department on the state of social workers in the country and it was important for the Committee to put that report on the agenda. The Committee could join Joint Committees on Tuesday. The term would be short and next year was basically an election year. The Committee had to start looking at additional dates to cover some of those bread-and-butter issues that were directly affecting the people on the ground and the Committee holding the Executive to accountable. On 14 September when the National Development Agency (NDA) came to the Committee, there was the matter of allegations of fraud within the NDA that led to an independent investigation that transpired. Would the Committee be hearing about those independent investigations on the fraud allegations at the NDA?

The Chairperson said that the Committee had discussed the matter of the legal advisor. The Committee was going to take it up and it would not be taking it up for the first time. The Committee would continue to be patient and raise it very sharply that it must not be a challenge that delayed the Committee. She noted Ms Abrahams’ comments about social workers and the shortage. Maybe when the Committee received the reports it would be able to interact with the Department in terms of how they thought they would increase the number of social workers. The Committee knew that social workers were not enough, and more were needed. On the issue of the NDA, she could not answer for the Department, and it was on the Committee to get the information on how far the investigations were. If the Department was done with the investigation, then the Committee had to have the report. If they were still busy with it, then they would tell the Committee. The Committee needed to agree and adopt the programme as a working document.

Mr Stock moved for the adoption of the 3rd Term Committee Programme.

Ms Manganye seconded the adoption of the 3rd Term Committee Programme.

The Committee adopted the 3rd Term Committee Programme.

The meeting was adjourned.