Question NW4156 to the Minister of Social Development
02 January 2024 - NW4156
van der Merwe, Ms LL to ask the Minister of Social Development
(1)With reference to her department’s Ten Point Plan which represents the priorities to be addressed by the social development sector during the period 2000 to 2005, what are the reasons that the outdated Plan is still displayed on the official website; (2) which of the ten priority points are still applicable to her department’s work; (3) in light of the tenth point which refers to training, educating, re-deployment and employment of a new category of workers in social development, how many social workers have been trained and employed by her department each year since 2000?
Reply:
(1) The 10 Point Plan was introduced in the year 2000 and was well encapsulated in the 2000-2005 Strategic Plan of the Department. The Ten Point Plan was published on the DSD homepage and is still there even today. Since these are public documents, the Department of Social Development took a conscious decision to retain archived documents on its home page in line with the Public Access to Information Act for easy access by the public for purposes of research and general information.
In terms DPME Framework for Strategic Planning and Annual Performance Plans, strategic priorities are reviewed on a medium-term basis, every 5 years, in line with the dispensation of the government administration. Therefore, the strategic priorities have been revised in line with the National Development Plan (NDP) and the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF).
(2) The Ten-Point Plan is still relevant to the work of the Department and have since been institutionalised to inform the Programmes and the structure of the Department. The plan still forms part of our Departmental mandate and still finds expression in the strategic documents such as the APP, and through the key outcomes for the 2019-2024 MTSF. The key outcomes are:
- Outcome 1: Reduced levels of poverty, inequality, vulnerability, and social ills
- Outcome 2: Empowered, resilient individuals, families, and sustainable communities
- Outcome 3: Functional, efficient, and integrated sector
(3) The Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Social Workers, which includes the Social Work Scholarship Programme was introduced in 2007. Since then, the Department recruited, trained and appointed 8 821 social work graduates. Since the 2018/2019 financial year, the Department has been experiencing capacity challenges to absorb all social work graduates due to budgetary constraints.
As a result, our country faces the paradox of social work graduates unemployment co-existing with major social ills in many communities. To address this challenge, the Department is working jointly with other key departments in the sector on Sector Strategy for Employment of Social Service Professionals as guided by the National Development Plan, which puts the figure at 55 000 social service professionals.