1. KEY STRATEGIC PROGRAMMES
Presentation to Portfolio Committee on Social Development
02 July 2014

2. Presentation Outline
Background
Strategic Plan
Key Projects
Financial Plan
Risks and Challenges
Recommendations

3. Purpose The purpose of the presentation is to:
Provide the Portfolio Committee with a broad overview of the strategic plan 2014/15 – 2018/19 ;
Highlight priority areas of the Agency for 2014/15; and
Give an overview of the budget allocation.

4. BACKGROUND

5. Introduction
SASSA is a Schedule 3A Public Entity that was established in April 2006.
The objectives of SASSA are:
to act, as the sole agent that will ensure the efficient and effective management, administration and payment of social assistance; and
to eventually serve as institution to manage broader social security benefits
The social assistance programme and the operations of SASSA are fully funded by government.

6. Rationale for establishment of SASSA
The business case for establishment of SASSA, sought to address the following:
Address the fragmented institutional arrangements and a lack of uniformity;
Address gaps and inconsistencies in the application of rules
The reduction of the turn around time for grant applications
Improvement in customer services and dignified treatment of citizens
Improvement in the integrity of the data and systems with a concomitant reduction in opportunities for fraud
Reduction of litigation with regard to social assistance matters
Reduce high administrative costs; and
Address the poor quality of service delivery.

7. Human Resource capacity
The organizational structure of SASSA provides for 18,000 staff members at different levels.
Number of funded posts (including EPWPs)
Filled posts stands at (including EPWPs)
The majority of these staff (70%) perform the grant administration function (application to approval), excluding the actual payment of grants.
The full structure will be gradually implemented as the Agency takes over the payment of social grants from the current service provider.

8. SASSA’s FOOTPRINTS
SASSA has the responsibility to ensure access to social assistance, in line with the Constitution. This is done through the extensive footprint the Agency enjoys in the country.
Head Office (1)
Regions
KZN NW EC WC GP MP
LIMP NC FS
National
Regional Offices 1 9
District Offices 4 7 5 44
Local Offices 75 26 62 16 38 33 45 14
335
Service Points 23
217
242 40 81 73
112
110
902
Pay-points
2781
734
3020
297
123
296
2120
363
203
9937

9. Summary of Achievements

10. Re-registration Back office clean-up R2 billion saving
May 2011 – March 2012
April 2012-March 2013
April 2013-March 2014
Re-registration Back office clean-up
R2 billion saving
CSG voluntary cancellations
Payment Model – Ministerial Advisory Committee appointed
Local Office improvement
Linking of grant - cooperatives
Fraud management
ICROP – Mikondzo
Staff Uniform
Reviews Backlog (suspended)
Biometrics for staff
Unqualified audit
Payment Tender
Payment Model
Automation
Service Delivery Improvements
Improvement of Local offices
Capacity building @ level 5 and 7
EPWPs
Standardisation – 4 step process
Unqualified Audit
Re-registration -20.7m
Migration to new payment system
Local offices improvement
Fraud management
Unqualified Audit
Capacity building:
level 5 and 7
EPWPs
Executive posts filled (95% achievement)
Staff Uniform
Payment Model
Biometrics for staff

11. Social Grants beneficiaries
Number of social grants beneficiaries against the total population
Province
Census 2011
Social Grants as at March 2014
Grants as a % of the total population
Eastern Cape
6,562,053
2,620,284
39.9
Free State
2,745,590
934,766
34.0
Gauteng
12,272,263
2,184,193
17.79
KwaZulu-Natal
10,267,300
3,761,662
36.64
Limpopo
5,404,868
2,222,730
41.12
Mpumalanga
4,039,939
1,325,217
32.80
North West
3,509,953
1,120,034
31.9
Northern Cape
1,145,861
424,815
37.0
Western Cape
5,822,734
1,338,772
23.0
Total
51,770,561
15,932,473
30.8%

12. Number of grant benefits and growth rates (2012/13 vs. 2013/14)
Grant type/Period
2012/13
2013/14
Difference/Change
% Growth
Old Age
2,873,197
2,969,933
96,736
3.37%
War Veteran
587
429
-158
-26.92%
Disability
1,164,192
1,120,419
-43,773
-3.76%
Grant in Aid
73,719
83,059
9,340
12.67%
Care Dependency
120,268
120,632
364
0.30%
Foster Child
532,159
512,055
-20,104
-3.78%
Child Support
11,341,988
11,125,946
-216,042
-1.90%
Total
16,106,110
15,932,473
-173,637
-1.08%

13. Strategic Plan

14. VISION MISSION SASSA’s Slogan
“A leader in the delivery of social security services”
MISSION
To administer quality customer-centric social security services to eligible and potential beneficiaries.
SASSA’s Slogan
Paying the right social grant, to the right person,
at the right time and place. NJALO!

15. STRATEGIC OUTCOME ORIENTED GOAL OF SASSA
Expand access to social assistance and creating a platform for future payment of social security benefits.
GOAL STATEMENT
To render social assistance to eligible beneficiaries

16. Key priorities for 2014/ /19
The primary focus of SASSA will be on:
Reducing income poverty by providing social assistance to eligible individuals
Improving service delivery
Improving internal efficiency
Institutionalising social grants payment system within SASSA

17. Key Focus areas SASSA will embark on a reform agenda aimed at
improving service delivery - make people’s dealings with government easier through better delivery and coordination of services
Improving organisational efficiency -modernising the Agency’s business processes
Developing a new payment system
Diversification: Positioning SASSA as payment provider for social security benefits

18. Key Priorities for the MTEF

19. Income support to eligible beneficiaries
OUTCOME
OBJECTIVE
ENVISAGED INTERVENTIONS
Reduce income poverty by providing social assistance to eligible individuals
To provide social assistance to eligible beneficiaries
Enrolment and payment of social assistance to eligible older persons, people with disabilities and children.
Reduction of exclusion errors in the social assistance programme
Improved take-up rates of 0-1 year old and 16 – 18 years old CSG beneficiaries
Improve take up rates of foster care grants through a collaborative approach with DSD
Reduction in inclusion errors in the social assistance programme
Administrative reviews for specific grants (excluding Old age Grants)
Life certification
Biometric verification of grant recipients

20. Implementation of the Social Assistance Programme
Objective
To provide social assistance to qualifying/eligible beneficiaries
Current Status
Over people are in benefiting from social grants.
The take –up rates for new grants was in 2013/14
Attrition rate of more than in 2013/15 largely due to voluntary cancellations, re-registration clean-up, and death.
Planned Activities
Target is to reach at least 1.1m new beneficiaries p.a
Increase the number of grants in payment from to by end of 2014/15

21. Implementation of the Social Assistance Programme
Objective
Improve the management of Social Relief of Distress by ensuring qualifying beneficiaries are not disadvantaged.
Planned Activities
SRD applications will be processed per annum over the next three years
Priority will be given largely to:
children suffering from mal-nutrition;
assisting families where the breadwinner died or is unemployed;
assisting in disaster situations; and
individuals awaiting grants.

22. Implementation of the Social Assistance Programme
Objective
Reduction of inclusion and exclusion errors in the social assistance programme
Current Status
CSG Take-up rates for infants remained stagnant between , at less than 50%.
Backlog reviews of Foster Care Grants (more than )
Planned Activities
Increase CSG take up rates to 70% over the MTEF through active mobilisation
Conduct reviews for the foster care grants in collaboration with DSD targeting children

23. Service Delivery Improvement
OUTCOME
OBJECTIVE
ENVISAGED INTERVENTIONS
Improved service delivery to beneficiaries
To improve the conditions under which beneficiaries are served
Acquisition and maintenance of suitable infrastructure in areas that are strategically located to serve the beneficiaries better
To raise awareness of beneficiaries on their rights and obligations relating to social assistance
Creating awareness amongst existing and eligible beneficiaries of the benefits they are entitled to
Community Outreach programmes - Mikondzo
Responsive to client enquiries (through effective call centre, helpdesk, etc.)
To improve business processes
Improved turn-around time and quality in the grant application process.
Improved queue management process
Introducing new application and payment access channels

24. Service Delivery Improvement
Objective
Improve the conditions under which beneficiaries are served
Current Status
More than 259 local offices have been improved
Turn around time for processing of grant applications is on average 21 days
Community Outreach programme (Mikondzo project) implemented throughout the country
Planned Activities
420 ICROP/ Mikondzo interventions
Complete the upgrading of remaining local offices and acquisition of new local offices and service points in areas of high need.
Progressively reduce the turn around time for processing of grants to an average of 10 days by 2016

25. Automation
Objective
Establishing a credible National payment database through re-registration programme.
Current Status
Over 20.7 million people have been re-registered.
Planned Activities
Cleaning of data
Re-registration Data Clean-up will involve data matching with critical institutions and elimination of duplications (commenced in 2013)
Fraud patterns assessed and investigated
Ongoing enrolment take over by SASSA

26. Automation OUTCOME OBJECTIVE ENVISAGED INTERVENTIONS
Automated business systems
Development of Biometric access and Identification system
Implementing biometric physical access system for authenticating staff and beneficiaries
Develop In-house system for management of beneficiaries biometrics information
Payment systems
Development of SASSA data factory (Build in-house payment control and reconciliation capability)
Digitised document storage system
Develop a system for scanning and storage of documents

27. Future Payment System Objective
The objective is for SASSA to implement its full mandate of administering, managing and paying social grants.
Current Status
Constitutional Court declared the Payment Tender awarded to CPS invalid; the order has been set aside pending award of new tender
Ministerial Advisory Committee has been established to advise the Minister on the future payment options for SASSA
SASSA hosted an expert round table workshop on Payment systems
Planned Activities
The plan was for SASSA is to take total responsibility for the payment of social grants in However, the ConCourt instructs a tender for 5 years – which we are in the process of implementing

28. Future Payment System (cont…)
The preparatory work would be done in phases, as follows:
Phase 1 ( ): Centralisation and Improvement of integrity of the data which included collection of biometric data. This has been achieved through the re-registration process. In addition, SASSA introduced beneficiaries to a electronic banking environment
Phase 2 (2014 – 2015): Taking over on-going enrolment process (that is the biometric enrolment of all new grant beneficiaries) (In process)
Phase 3 ( ): DATA Factory - Developing SASSA’s in-house capability to manage enrolments, payments and reconciliations (in process) .
The phases above will run parallel to the new tender process.

29. Other initiatives to be addressed by SASSA
Intensify outreach programme to communities with the objective to reach those beneficiaries who are unable to reach our office and ensure that potential and current beneficiaries are fully informed of the programmes and initiative.
Intensive effort to recruit people with disabilities
Exploring measures to build SASSA’s Future Workforce by establishing partnerships with universities and technikons and giving bursaries for training and education in the field of social security.

30. Key Projects 2014
The 2014 projects prioritised for the coming year include:
Payment Tender (R10 million)
Automation
Biometric Access for staff (ICT and Building)
Scanning of documents
CSG exclusions and Foster Care Reviews
Organisational Review
Grant debtors
Data Factory
Mikondzo – 420 ICROP

31. SASSA Financial Plan
2013/ /16

32. Overview of the SASSA budget

34. Overview of the budget cont.

35. Overview of the budget
The strategic and spending focus of SASSA is on the administration and payment of social grants.
The baseline budget grows below the projected headline CPI of 5, 4% and declines by an amount of R10 million /15 and 2015/16 respectively.
Following success of the financial turnaround strategy unaudited AFS for 2013/14 shows a net accumulated surplus of R1, 089, 000 billion. The funds will strategically be used on flagship once-off projects.

36. Overview of the budget
The majority of the budget (39%) is on compensation of employees, followed by the cash handling fees (30%), while the balance caters for operational expenses such as office accommodation, cleaning, security, travel, communication, etc.
54 % of the budget is located at Head Office while 46% is shared among the nine regions. The majority of the 54% of head office’s share includes the cash handling fees which makes Head Office’s share bigger.
Internal allocation process is guided by the principle of affording first priority to key cost drivers and striving for an achievement of balance between competing needs

37. Overview of the budget (cont…)
The award of a cash disbursement contract to a single contractor has resulted in positive spin-offs as the cost of business in this area has declined
However, efforts to address service delivery challenges at local offices and service points necessitated the acquisition of requisite human capacity, leading to an increase in compensation of employees.

38. 2014/15 Allocations per key cost driver

40. Special projects

42. Overview of the budget cont.

43. Key Strategic Challenges

44. Risks and Challenges
Payment Tender - implementation of the ConCourt order
Declining resources against SASSA’s future growth plans
Fraud, theft and corruption
Disaster Management – systems, registries and facilities
SASSA Reputational Damage needs to managed
Unintended consequences of the payment process - deductions

45. Opportunities
Preparations for Universalisation of Old Age Pension and CSG
Other Social Security institutions are starting to engage with SASSA to assess the possibilities for SASSA to administer their payment

46. Recommendations
It is recommended that Portfolio Committee note and support SASSA’s key strategic programme and budget for /15 – 2018/19

47. Thank you