Agency for Social Protection puts new measures in place |28 June 2013

Among these measures is a six percent increase in the money earned by those offering home care services as from July 1.

Mr Cosgrow said home carers working on a full day basis earn R3106 and will now have an increase of R186, making their new allowance reach R3292.

As for the home carers working on a half-day basis, they will now get R1972 per month, following an increase of R112 on the R1860 they were earning.

Mr Cosgrow said as of July 1, the government has decided to merge the home care and the family support services into one and will now be called home care services.

For the family support services, a person working on a full-day basis receives R2030 and for half-day the allowance is R1400.

With this merger, all those offering any of the family support and home care services will get R3292 if working full day and R1972 if on half-day basis, he added.

As at May this year, the agency has a total of 2447 individuals offering home care services.
Mr Cosgrow said as from August 1, 2013 all applications for home care will be done at district level and a new method of evaluating who qualifies to receive home care help will be put in place.
This will include taking into consideration all expenses and income of the household.

“Based on the new method, the agency will decide if the person is entitled to get full assistance from the government or if the family will have to make a contribution,” he said.
As from July 1, 2013 the government will review all measures used to calculate social welfare benefits.

The ASP is increasing the percentage on the weights which are used to calculate social welfare benefits.
These weights include supplementation which means the basic needs of a person, and utilities.

There will be a six percent increase for the supplementation and for utilities this will be raised by 10%.
The agency will also work on new methods to assess those who apply for social assistance.

Mr Cosgrow said the ASP will soon review the measures used to help people who are in employment but whose salaries are not sufficient enough to meet their needs.