Dept welcomes child welfare report

A report by the Financial and Fiscal Commission on child welfare services is consistent with findings by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, her department said on Wednesday.

   

"The report is consistent with what the minister... has found during her public participation programmes and during the non-profit organisation (NPO) summit which took place in August 2012," it said in a statement. 

   

"The department welcomes the acknowledgement by the commission that 'Child welfare is a sector under severe pressure to transform, extend service access, and increase service quality'."

   

The report -- released on Monday -- found that the financing and delivery of child welfare services needed to be reviewed. 

   

"NPOs, which provide the majority of statutory services on behalf of government, are facing severe financial problems because of an increase in demand for their services, coupled with a decline in funding and delays in transfers from government," the commission said. 

   

"Unlike private sector providers that get paid upfront and within 30 days, NPOs only get reimbursed for service delivery quarterly in arrears, which creates cash flow problems." 

   

The commission recommended that government put in place a financing plan that moved towards full funding of minimum norms and standards for child services. 

   

The department said that since the NPO summit, the minister formed a national ministerial task team to resolve compliance matters, improve capacity building, and facilitate transformation in the sector. 

   

It said as of January 30, there were about 101,910 registered NPOs. 

   

Of these, 35,190 had not submitted their annual reports to the department, rendering them non-compliant with the provisions. 

   

An additional 23,034 NPOs were de-registered on October 3 last year for not submitting annual reports. 

   

"According to the NPO database, many of the affected were NPOs registered before 2007 and they had never submitted annual reports," it said. 

   

"Since the deregistration process, the department has been on road-shows to educate and assist NPOs on issues of compliance."

   

Following the road-shows, 20,523 reports were submitted by different NPOs.

   

"However, due to the low response from the NPOs that were previously de-registered minister Dlamini has given an extension to 31 March 2014 for these NPOs to submit their reports in order to comply with the NPO Act."

   

The department said Dlamini had also appointed a ministerial committee to review the implementation of the 1997 social welfare white paper and the paper itself.

   

-Sapa