Suffer little children

DEPARTMENT: NUMBER OF FOSTER CARE GRANTS HAS DECREASED

DA MP says situation is ‘scandalous’ when so many are in great need.

Outrage alone will not save children from harm and neglect, but fixing the tools for social protection of children will be a good start. This is how some MPs recently responded to the department of social development’s figures showing multimillion-rand underspending on programmes like foster care grants.

MPs across the political spectrum in the portfolio committee on social development demanded answers over the department’s underexpenditure on social assistance, totalling almost R900 million.

This concern, however, did not necessarily translate into decisive demands for action in the department’s budgetary review and recommendations report.

The parliamentary monitoring group transcripts of the meeting shows the department of social development explained the underspending as a result of the “slow spending on foster care and old age pensions”.

This was due to a “lower-than-anticipated projected number of beneficiaries”, departmental officials said.

But Democratic Alliance MP Karen Jooste told ParlyBeat it was “scandalous” that monies are returned to Treasury while there clearly is a great need.

“Does the department really expect anybody to believe that they issued fewer foster care grants because fewer children need them?” she asked.

Jooste said the statistics of crimes against children were horrific, which was why the foster care grants specifically designed for abused and neglected children were needed as part of the intervention.

“It is just not possible that fewer children need foster care services,” she said. “Just earlier this year, the minister of police revealed that there are at least two child murders every day. There were 36 731 reported sexual offences, 81 142 common assault and 53 263 assault cases with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm on children, showing a clear need for foster care and other interventions,” she said.

Jooste accused the department of being economical with the truth.

“The foster care system has collapsed. That is the truth. Social workers are often too busy with paperwork and clearing backlogs in applications, so they neglect preventative services that may help identify cases where children might be at risk,” she said.

“There are also not enough social workers.”

The office of the minister of social development earlier, in a parliamentary reply to a question, said the number of applications for foster grants decreased from 32 000 to 12 000 in five years. – Republished from Parlybeat