Disability Policy and Strategy: briefing by Department
Social Development
20 September 2006
Meeting Summary
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Meeting report
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
20 September 2006
DISABILITY POLICY AND STRATEGY: DEPARTMENT BRIEFING
Chairperson: Ms T S
Tshivhase (ANC)
Documents handed out:
Presentation on Development’s
Disability Policy and Strategy
SUMMARY
The Department of Social Development made a presentation on its Disability
Policy and Strategy and focused particularly on the progress made with
implementing policies, the goals and objectives of the strategy as well as challenges
in implementation. The Department required more funding to properly discharge
its mandate. The Committee was particularly interested in the department’s role
in relation to other players such as the Office on the Rights of Children and
the United Nations. The Committee also asked for clarity on the department’s
arguments that it needed more funding to fully implement its programmes, as well as whether it was largely a research entity.
It was noted that in some instances, the department was unable to supply
detailed information on Members’ questions and requested another opportunity to
brief the Committee in detail. The Committee agreed to this request, but voiced
its disproval at the lack of reliable and accurate data provided at the
meeting.
MINUTES
Presentation by the Department of Social Development (DSD)
The DSD was represented by Ms N Kela, Chief
Director, and Ms M Molamu, Director: Disability. Ms Molamu briefed the Committee on the progress the department
has achieved of late. In her presentation she talked about the disability programme goals and objectives which included research and
a policy framework on disability. She dealt with implementation strategies,
intergovernmental structures and the challenges they were facing. Ms Kela added that it was important the Committee remember
that the department was formally established in 2004 only and they had already
managed to have two disability policies approved. She emphasised
that the department required more funding as currently it only had a director, deputy
director and assistant director that were doing all disability-related work
Discussion
Mr M Waters (DA) asked who was responsible
for the unreliable data and why they thought having better information
management systems would help to accumulate more reliable data.
Ms Molamu replied that the unreliable data came from
service providers who would not list as providing services to the disabled
thereby providing gaps in the data. They were advised by the Treasury that they
needed to engage the provinces if they were to acquire more reliable data.
Ms Kela added that without proper information
management systems it would be hard to acquire the required data and to
evaluate it as well.
Mr Waters asked about the costing of the model.
Ms Kela replied that on national level, the total
cost would be about R2.8 million, split equally between personnel and
operational costs.
Mr Waters asked about the gap between the funding the
department needed to facilitate the services and what was actually available on
the ground.
Mr Waters asked about the number of social workers
that were going to be needed to implement the policies.
Ms Kela replied that before they would have a rough
estimate on the number of social workers required they needed to do research in
the provinces after which they would inform the Committee.
Mr Waters requested clarification of the department’s
statement that they had inadequate resources.
Ms Molamu replied that insufficient resources
referred to the need for more partners and a more concentrated effort to
provide a comprehensive service for disabled persons; for example transport
from the Transport Department.
Advocate T M Masutha (ANC) asked what the role of the
department was in transformation, especially whether they concentrated on their
own programmes or were they co-coordinating between
departments.
Ms Kela replied that they were not usurping the role
of the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons which dealt with coordination
between departments; their role was to create a disability sensitive
environment and to look at the social services at the disposal of the disabled
knowing that they were not the sole providers of the services.
Advocate Masutha asked whether the disabled unit in
the department was only a research entity because it seemed that they were
leaning heavily towards research.
Ms Kela replied that research was only one of the
many projects that they were undertaking.
Advocate Masutha remarked that he did not see any
situational analysis that was crucial when developing strategies and if the
Committee were to do oversight properly they needed more information on what
the services were and who benefited from them.
Advocate Masutha asked the department to “unpack” the
detailed analysis on age cohorts.
Ms Kela replied that the briefing was an overall
progress report on the policies the department had created. They apologised that it did not contain a situational analysis
or the answers to all Adv Masutha’s questions. She
asked for another opportunity to brief the Committee in detail.
Advocate Masutha asked how they were interlinked with
other departments and what these departments would be doing to assist them.
Ms Kela replied that this was problematic because in
the provinces people who offered services to the disabled also offered services
to older persons. Since the services were not focused they needed more funding
to roll them out.
The Chairperson asked for the number of disabled persons in rural areas as
these were notorious for hiding their disabled.
Ms Kela replied that they did not have the statistics
with them but would make it available to the Committee.
Mr L Nzimande (ANC) asked
who would be funding the proposed workshops and what was being done to prevent
people from manipulating the workshops in order to get funds under the guise
that they were providing employment to the disabled.
Ms Molamu replied that they were aware of the need to
transform the workshops. Funding came from provincial Departments of Social
Services, but they hoped that in the long run other key departments would also
render services that would enable the beneficiaries to enter the economic
world. The workshops were registered as Non-Profit Organisations
(NPOs) and therefore were governed by the NPO Act
which prohibited them from acting as employers.
Mr Nzimande requested to
know the amount of reliance the department was putting on Rotary International (RI) and what
their role was in relation to the United Nations (UN).
Ms Molamu replied that concerning the UN there were
conventions that laid down the processes that have to be followed to implement
policies. As for RI, it was a group of voluntary organisations
that they obtained information and experience from.
Mr Nzimande asked what
their relationship with the African Rehab Institute was like at the movement.
Ms W S Newhoudt- Druchen
asked if the department’s policies and strategies would incorporate children
with disabilities and exactly what sort of research had they done in this area.
Ms Newhoudt-Druchen asked what the input of the
Inter-departmental Collaboration Committee on Disability (IDCCD) was and about
the role of the Office on the Rights of the Child (OCR).
Ms Molamu said because the OCR wanted to combine the
roles of children’s stakeholders they were both advocating developmental
strategies that needed to link grants with sustainable livelihoods. Moreover
they needed to register the children in developmental programmes
whilst they were still young so that they would not only be able to get grants
but to have developmental opportunities as well.
Ms Kela added that the roles of the IDCCD and
the OCR were to assist the department with identifying key departments needed
for implementation of the policies and to discuss fundamental issues. The IDCCD
sat in on the meetings of other departments that might not fully understand
disability.
The meeting was adjourned.
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