Agency for Social Protection Major reforms underway to reduce dependency on welfare support |09 September 2017

In line with ongoing national effort to empower families and individuals with skills so they can better help themselves by taking up employment to improve their status of poverty as well as reduce their dependency on welfare, the Agency for Social Protection (ASP) is also undergoing major reforms to help it achieve that.

The ASP chief executive Marcus Simeon has said it is moving away from being an agency which just gives out financial assistance to people to one that has a real duty of care to the public whereby it will work closely with all concerned partners and concerned ministries to adopt an approach which will target only those people who genuinely deserve to receive financial support .

“It has been proven that financial assistance alone do not solve social problems but that there is a need for a more coordinated approach to work with families to empower them to improve their quality of life,” Mr Simeon said.

“Gone are the days when people just fill an application form, get means-tested, take the money, go and come back again months later for more money. We will work more closely with the families throughout the period they are being assisted with the aim of ensuring they are empowered to stand on their own feet and  eventually wean them off welfare,” Mr Simeon said.

“As much as possible we want to reduce the likelihood of trans-generational transfer of dependency on welfare by ensuring children do not fall in the same trap as their parents. The ASP will place strong emphasis on education by working closely with the Ministry of Education whereby a consultant will  closely monitor children from these families in schools,” Mr Simeon said.

Meanwhile Mr Simeon said as of next month an Unemployment Relief Scheme will come into force and all persons seeking welfare benefits, because they are not in a job, will be sent to the department of employment to be assessed and enrolled on the scheme.

It is expected that the introduction of the scheme will reduce requests for financial assistance on this basis.

Mr Simeon added that staff of the ASP are also being groomed with new skills to better handle new approach to their work.

The ASP operational structure is also being reviewed to introduce an inspectorate section, other new units as well as beef up its customer care.  

Assessment welfare is also being reviewed to ensure it is fair for all groups.

With regard to those single parents who are in low paid jobs and whose incomes are being supplemented by the ASP, Mr Simeon said the agency and the department of employment are exploring ways and strategies to come up with training programme modalities to fit this group to increase their skills so they can move to higher paid jobs and subsequently increase their incomes.

But he admits that there are numerous challenges to overcome to achieve that.

Mr Simeon said at present from the 3094 people receiving welfare assistance, 81 % claims to be single parents with some having up to seven children.

Mr Simeon said this figure is expected to increase slightly with the recent call for a review in measures used to allocate welfare assistance, thus a slight increase in its allocated budget of R75 million as well.