Services and programmes for people living with disabilities, including children: DSD, DBE & DWYPD briefing; with Minister of Social Development

Meeting report

Minister's opening address

Ms Lindiwe Zulu, Minister of Social Development, assured the Committee that the Department’s presentation demonstrated how the social development portfolio positively impacted people with disabilities as a distinct demographic group. In a previous presentation alongside the Department of Social Development (DSD), she encouraged the departmental officials to put themselves in the shoes of persons living with disabilities and answer the question: was the DSD giving persons with disabilities the best service they deserved? This had been followed by: did the DSD, as the Department responsible for the well-being of the citizens, push other government departments well enough to make them appreciate the responsibility of being responsible for the actions of other departments as it related to the impact it had on the people served by the DSD?

At the birth of the South African democracy, it had been acknowledged by all that the majority of people with disabilities and their families were systematically being excluded from meaningfully benefiting from their social, civic and economic rights, as well as improving their well-being. Whilst the exclusion suffered by disabled people may have resulted from colonial apartheid, present-day institutions were the biggest culprits. Everything possible had to be done to change the status quo.

Firstly, there was a need to deal with the reinforcement of disability stereotypes, thereby signalling the end of collective ignorance amongst the so-called progressive institutions that prevented the understanding that disabled persons were patients who required care.

Secondly, they also had to stop patronising people with disabilities and the regressive and disability-exclusionary attitudes and practices with unparalleled impunity. This was particularly adverse when the civic and economic emancipation of people with disabilities was concerned, and lagged behind the achievement of the disability inclusivity targets that they set voluntarily. This was although disability inclusivity targets were the only targets being consistently revised by all institutions, despite the increasing availability of qualified and competent persons with disabilities in any conceivable field.

Therefore, as South African society was reconstructing itself towards inclusive recovery against a backdrop of a series of health, social, economic and climate change shocks that all had been through, the narrow-mindedness witnessed when it came to the isolation of persons with disabilities as though they were lesser citizens, was untenable.

The Minister reminded the Department’s officials that before the advent of democracy, when the Constitution was being developed and drafted, it was people living with disabilities who had stood up and used the theme of "nothing about us, without us."

The social development portfolio continually strived to work together with disabled people’s organisations that were responsible for rendering relevant and meaningful support to South Africa’s people with disabilities. With this in mind, the Department had developed the draft policy on social development services for persons living with disabilities, which would soon be Gazetted for public comment.

Minister Zulu expressed her dissatisfaction with the pace at which the policy was being administered, stating that whilst people were meandering through bureaucratic measures, it was a person living with disabilities that suffered the consequences. It was important to give hope, show due care, and ensure that relevant policies and legislation were being developed for persons living with disabilities.

This policy had been developed to ensure meaningful improvement in the lives of people with disabilities and their families. It was aligned with the 2015 White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, hence the policy was the translation of the key tenants of the White Paper into social development services programmes. This would be beneficial to the quest of addressing the systemic isolation, inequalities and poverty that society was imposing on people with disabilities.

The contribution of the social development portfolio to the economic resilience, reconstruction and recovery of South Africans with disabilities could not be restricted to the monthly payments of the disability grant in aid and the care dependency grant to the growing number of South Africans who genuinely treasured these meaningful interventions by government.

People with disabilities were not living with their disabilities. Instead, they lived with their families and in their communities. For this reason, the Department rendered a variety of direct services that were beneficial to them. These included family and parental support programmes, independent living programmes, and respite care services for families of children and adults with disabilities.

For her, it was about up-scaling these programmes, and for all other relevant government departments to go looking and implementing them house-to-house, street-to-street, and community-to-community so that there could be a clear picture of the support given and the impact of the Department's services.

Ultimately, the services and programmes of the social development portfolio should be targeted at ending the indignity, hunger, destitution, unemployment and poverty that disabled people experienced. Expression of pity would not end it.

When the Minister had been engaging with the Department's research and policy on homelessness in South Africa, she felt that part of what was not found in the Department's documents was a really true focus on homelessness amongst persons living with disabilities. Being on the street was a harsh reality, but it was even worse to imagine being homeless and living with disabilities. She hoped that when the document comes to the Portfolio Committee, the Members would also remember to look at the interests of disabled persons.

The Chairperson enquired if the DSD had managed to reach an acceptable level of persons living with disabilities (PWD) representational in their own Department.

Programmes and services for children with disabilities: DBE

Mr Jabulani Ngcobo, Director: School Improvement Projects, Department of Basic Education (DBE), said the purpose of the presentation was to report on the programmes and services for children with disabilities. The African Children’s Charter focused on the importance of education in enhancing a child's full potential while asserting that the lack of education was a life sentence of poverty and exclusion. This rendered the right to education as one of the most important rights in the lives of all children, including children with disabilities.

For people with disabilities, the right to education was particularly important, as it directly impacted the successful enjoyment of all other rights protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

The strategic direction guiding the Department emanated from chapter nine of the National Development Plan (NDP), which provides for inclusive education that enables everyone to participate effectively in a free society. It refers to an education which provides knowledge and skills that people with disabilities could use to exercise a range of other human rights, as well as ensure that all children with disabilities have access to quality education.

In 2001 South Africa adopted inclusive education as a mechanism for ensuring that everyone could participate and contribute effectively to their lives and society at large. Since then, the country has not looked back, and significant progress has been made in deploying inclusive education as a mechanism for ensuring access to education for all, especially for children with disabilities.

As of 2022, access to education for learners with disabilities was sitting with 489 special schools with 89% percent being public-government schools. A total of 137 483 learners were enrolled in special schools, and 121 461 learners with disabilities were enrolled in public ordinary schools. The Department had introduced full-service schools, which were schools that provided moderate support and required low to medium levels of support. There were currently 832 schools.

To ensure adequately trained education officials, the DBE has since 2015 trained 178 757 teachers and 786 officials, and 8 727 early childhood development (ECD) practitioners on the screening, identification, assessment and support of learners policy. The policy was aimed at improving access to quality education for vulnerable learners who experienced barriers to learning, including learners in ordinary and special schools.  

The collaborative partnership between the DBE and the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) led to the development of specialised university qualifications in the education of learners who were/had:

deaf and hard of hearing courses - the University of Witwatersrand;
visually impaired - the University of Pretoria; and
courses around neurodevelopmental conditions -- the University of Western Cape and the University of Johannesburg.

These collaborative actions were alongside a bursary scheme that funded teachers who took courses in these specialised areas and sign language.

The Senior National Certificate South African Sign Language (home language) was offered in 2019, and since then the number of learners taking the subject has doubled to 210 as of 2022, with a 77% pass rate. Overall, however, the number of learners with special needs who wrote the National Senior Certificate decreased by 1 172 learners between 2021 and 2022. Gauteng, the Free State and North West Province had shown the biggest decrease.

The Department had also developed a curriculum for learners with intellectual disabilities, as literature showed that this group was often marginalised. The curriculum was divided into three, namely profound intellectual disability, severe intellectual disability, and mild intellectual disability.

The Department had reported challenges in achieving optimal results. These included inadequate support for learners experiencing barriers to learning, and the conditional grant for learners with severe and profound intellectual disabilities had not adequately addressed the placement of learners in public schools. Efforts were being made and strategies employed to mitigate the challenges.

The DBE recommended that the Portfolio Committee on Social Development discuss and consider the report on the programmes and services for children with disabilities.

Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities briefing

Adv Mikateko Maluleke, Director-General (DG), Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD), said the Department's mandate was to regulate the socio-economic empowerment of women, youth, and persons with disabilities. The Department employed numerous strategic inventions for women, youth, and persons with disabilities.

Ms Phuti Mabelebele, Chief Director: Advocacy and Mainstreaming Rights, DWYPD, said the efforts of the Department were premised on the following strategic pillars:

Removing barriers to access and participation
Protecting the rights of persons with disabilities at risk of experiencing compounded marginalisation
Supporting sustainable, integrated community life
Promoting and supporting the empowerment of persons with disabilities
Reducing economic vulnerability and releasing human capital
Strengthening the representative voice of persons with disabilities
Building a disability-equitable state machinery
Promoting international co-operation
Monitoring and evaluation

The Department's work was proving to be limited due to the lack of disability legislation to assist it in enforcing requirements in instances of non-compliance. In line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Department embarked on a process towards developing a Disability Rights Bill. The process was underway, in collaboration with the South African Law Reform Commission. At this stage, the discussion paper was in the process of publication. The intention was to ensure a Disability Rights Bill was tabled before Parliament, before the end of this sixth administration.

The Department's objective was to use the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (WPRPD) and it's implementation matrix as approved by Cabinet in December 2015. The paper commits duty bearers to realise the rights of persons with disabilities by:

Accelerating implementation of existing legislation that advocates equality for persons with disabilities. The Department was not performing well in this area, as most of the policies did not have built-in disability-specific indicators. This made it impossible at times to deduce data on persons with disabilities.
Removing discriminatory barriers to access and participation;
Ensuring that universal design informs, accesses, and participates in the planning, budgeting, and service delivery value chain of all programmes;
Recognising the right to self-representation; and
Acknowledging that not all persons with disabilities were alike and that personal circumstances, gender, age, sexuality, religious and cultural backgrounds and geographical location, required different responses.

These were essential elements of disability mainstreaming that the Department had identified as a focal tool. Lack of uniformity and inconsistency remained a challenge amongst the varying structures in government. Efforts were underway to address these challenges.

Dr Praveena Sukhraj-Ely, Chief Director: Governance and Compliance, DWYPD, said the core functions of her directorate were promoting disability rights inclusion and disability-responsive budgeting, planning, research, reporting, monitoring and evaluation.

The sub-programme on governance and compliance was the national disability rights coordination mechanism of the government, which sets the agenda for disability rights in South Africa. It was responsible for coordinating and compiling national, regional and international reports on treaty and policy obligations. Particular focus was also given to disability inclusion and monitoring and evaluation of progressive realisation and impact of implementing national and international law and policy. It played an integral role in disability-inclusive research.

One of the greatest challenges involved the Inclusion of disabilities being highly affected by the lack of specific disability legislation to enforce compliance and reporting. Without disability-inclusive planning and implementation, it was challenging to bring about the socio-economic transformation of persons with disabilities. This was followed by a lack of compliance with reporting requirements by reporting institutions and a lack of enforcement. Monitoring and evaluation of disability rights instruments were critical to identifying gaps that exist, developing theories of change, and proposing interventions and solutions.

One of the key priorities of the Department was research. There had been completed research by the Department, such as the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on persons with disabilities, in partnership with the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and elements of the cost of disability to South African households for persons with disabilities. Both these reports were approved by Cabinet and have been published on the Department’s website.
 
There were various challenges to institutionalising disability mainstreaming and reporting across society. The Department aimed to strengthen disability-inclusive and responsive planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, auditing and reporting, insofar as disability mainstreaming was concerned.

Gender-responsive and gender-based violence and femicide response

Ms Shoki Tshabalala, Deputy Director-General: Social Transformation and Economic Empowerment, DWYPD, said the role of the Department involved coordination of the implementation of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF). It was also responsible for compiling monthly reports based on progress from departments with specific implementation responsibilities, and those based on inputs from other sectors, mainly through the multisectoral "End GBVF Collective."

The NSP on GBVF's vision of eradicating GBVF could not be realised without ending violence against persons with disabilities in all their diversity, and without comprehensive and inclusive approaches to policy and programming. A key recognition was that marginalising and exploiting persons with disabilities, such as socio-economic exclusion, intensified their vulnerability to GBVF and other forms of discrimination.

The Department had the following key interventions in addressing GBVF:

Strengthening accountability across the government system for implementation through the institutionalisation of the NSP on GBVF, and the national comprehensive GBVF prevention strategy, and enforcement of compliance with progress reporting.
Establishment of disability-inclusive rapid response teams across all district municipalities. These structures were meant to be agile in their responses, and multisectoral in nature.
Advocate for tackling in terms of communication, universal design and access to victim-friendly survivor-focused services for persons with disabilities. The Department of Justice had responded to this and was now exploring the extent and which their Department was responsive at the court level – beyond physical access – in ensuring the accessibility of services. Such initiatives included the training of interpreters in sign language.
Monitor and evaluate progress in implementation. An implementation evaluation was scheduled for 2023/24, and they would work on ensuring disability-specific targets were mainstreamed across all the NSP on GBVF pillars.
The National Council on GBVF Bill was in place, and they were facilitating its successful enactment.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Ms Dineo Makoe, Chief Director: Monitoring and Evaluation, DWYPD, said the Department continued with the coordination of the implementation of the gender-responsive planning, budgeting, monitoring, evaluation and auditing framework across the three spheres of government and state-owned entities to ensure institutionalisation and responsiveness of the plans to the priorities of women, youth, and persons with disabilities.

Rapid evaluation had been conducted of the implementation of government's policy on preferential public procurement towards WYPD-owned businesses in 2022/23. The evaluation assessed the progress on the policy's implementation, and the existence of gaps or areas for strengthening by pointing out the successes, best practices and challenges, and proposing improvements.

The Department also conducted a rapid evaluation of the implementation of government's policy on preferential public procurement towards women, youth, and persons with disability-owned businesses. The findings indicated that the highest procurement spent for persons with disabilities-owned businesses was recorded by the Department of Employment and Labour at 3.57% between 2019/20 and 2020/2, followed by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, where 3% (9 out of 293) persons with disabilities-owned businesses were awarded contacts. Data on persons with disabilities-owned businesses remained insufficient.

Departmental programmes and services

Ms Kenny Maluleke, Chief Director: Strategy, DWYPD, said her directorate had programmes and services for people with disabilities, including children. The Department depended on a positive collaborative relationship with other sector departments to implement its proposed policy. The Departments of Health, Basic Education, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, were critical in the mainstreaming of disability considerations and the provision of comprehensive social services to persons with disabilities, particularly at the local and district levels.

The Department had established a provincial disability forum to serve as a platform that coordinated implementing and monitoring the Department's disability rights agenda. The national DSD provided services to the forum, which included capacity-building initiatives on matters impacting disability programmes, the hosting of key departments, and disability service organisations to enhance the collaboration and mainstreaming trajectory and sharing of the Department's position that impacted the departmental disability agenda, including monitoring and evaluation.

The Department offered the following programmes to people with disabilities and families of persons with disabilities

Psycho-social support services – cross-cutting services.
Family and parental support programmes
Independent living programmes
Respite care services
Residential care services
Awareness campaigns on the effect of alcohol on pregnant persons

The Department recommended that the Portfolio Committee note and consider the services provided to persons living with disabilities, including children.

DSD briefing on departmental services and programmes for people with disabilities including children
The Department took the Committee through its presentation – see attached for further details

Postponement of discussion

Ms A Abrahams (DA) was concerned that not enough time in the meetings were dedicated to discussions. She felt this was a problem of Zoom and could be mitigated through physical meetings. Physical meetings would also save Members from having to rush to catch the bus for the plenaries thus shortening meetings. Alternatively, Members must arrive to meetings have read the documents to commence with discussions. She was concerned about written responses to written questions not always being forthcoming. She asked that the Chairperson relook at how the Committee meetings were run.

The Chairperson reminded the Member that not all Members live in Cape Town and there was the problem of the end of the financial year and some people not having tickets. She suggested meetings begin earlier. She noted the concerns but also called for consideration of those not living in Cape Town. The length of the presentations was not anticipated.

Ms L van der Merwe (IFP) proposed written questions be held off and that the Committee invite further departments relevant to this topic such as the Department of Health. There could be overall discussion then including the departments that presented today.  This was an important topic and written questions might not be the way to go.

The Chairperson clarified another sitting would be arranged for the discussion and the written questions would be used to help the departments prepare.

Ms van der Merwe added that the Committee should consider that no committee rooms, except for one, were hybrid. This excludes many people not based in Cape Town or the public watching on YouTube. It also had implications on the budgets for departments travelling to Cape Town. Committee rooms were being prioritised for committees dealing with legislation. These factors must be considered when the Committee decided on physical meetings.

Ms K Bilankulu (ANC) suggested the Committee limit the number of departments appearing before the Committee so there was enough time for discussions.

The Chairperson took note of all the comments. She agreed on noting hearing from too many departments in one meeting.

The meeting was adjourned.