1. Comment on the December 2009 regulations and the Minister’s briefing of 9 February 2010 Child Support Grant

2. (1)The age extension (2)The school enrolment and attendance “condition” Contents

3. Age extension to 18 years The draft regulations were designed in a way that would have resulted in children falling off the grant between the extension phases. The final regulations are a major improvement as they ensure that once a child is on the system the child stays on until they turn 18. A cut off birth date of 1 October 1994 was set but we would have preferred Jan or April 1994 so that more children could be included. This Portfolio Committee asked for 1 January 1994 The Minister told the Portfolio Committee on 9 Feb 2010 that the regulations would be amended again to change the cut off birth date to 31 December 1993. This will include more children and require more budget therefore the Minister warned Parliament that trade offs will need to be made.

4. The trade off: Finance Minister’s budget speech shows where the trade off has been made – the two main children’s grants will not be increased to keep pace with inflation: CSG = 4% increase FCG = 4.4 % increase Inflation = 6.4% Below inflation increase will have a long term impact on the grants ability to keep pace with inflation over the years that follow. It also impacts negatively on the required annual inflation increase of the qualifying income threshold. The promised new regulations (with the improved cut off birth date of 31 December 1993) have not yet been promulgated - yet the trade off has been announced in the budget speech.

5. Questions Will the new regulations with the birth date of 31 Dec 1993 be promulgated? Is the trade-off not increasing the CSG to keep pace with inflation acceptable to Parliament? should the CSG budget be the place where the trade off is made or should money rather be taken from a budget that does not affect children negatively? if another budget – which one? how will the below inflation increase impact on children and families now and in the future? how many children will be positively affected by the change in the cut off birth date versus how many children will be negatively affected by the below inflation increases?

6. School enrolment and attendance “condition” Draft regulations were punitive - ie they punished children and families by suspending the CSG if the child was not in school. This approach would have led to the most vulnerable children not only being deprived of education, but also social grants (eg children with moderate disabilities, children caring for sick parents, children living far from schools, children in rural areas). Final regulations are a major improvement: Non- attendance invokes a supportive mechanism (social worker visit) to identify vulnerable children and start a process of assistance to the family so that the underlying reason of non-attendance can be appropriately addressed. (eg maybe the child is not in school because the school will not admit the child, or the mother is so ill that the child has to stay at home to care for her).

7. Challenges that lie ahead The regulations are not clear in a number of areas. This can be addressed either by re-drafting them to be clearer or by the Department providing directives and basic communication materials that interpret the regulations. Lack of interpretative guidelines are likely to lead to misinterpretations by officials, the media and the general public. Basic communication materials explaining the new regulations are not yet available for officials, NGOs, or the public. Our partners such as Black Sash and ACESS need this information to inform caregivers, other NGOs and CBOs.

8. Areas that require clarity Regulation 6(5) (c) says that the primary care giver must provide proof of school or educational institution enrolment and attendance to SASSA, “within one month of approval of a child support grant”. The regulation clearly says that the proof must be submitted after the CSG application is approved which makes it clear that it is not an eligibility requirement. However there have been reports of SASSA officials saying that caregivers must bring proof of school attendance in order to apply for the CSG. Caregivers are likely to struggle to get such proof from the school due to lack of capacity within the education system. It is therefore important that it is not mis-interpreted as an eligibility requirement as this will then slow down the application process and result in children not being able to access the CSG timeously. The Minister answered this question in Parliament on 9 February and said that school attendance was not an eligibility requirement. This kind of statement by the Minister should be distributed to all SASSA officials as soon as possible.

9. Areas that require clarity Regulation 6(5) (c) says that the primary care giver must submit to the National DG of Soc Dev the child’s recent school report signed by the principal, “every six months after the period referred to in paragraph (b), “ The Minister’s team told Parliament that this function could be delegated by the National DG. Has this been delegated yet? If yes – to what level? To what address should caregivers send their school reports?

10. Areas that require clarity The SA Schools Act allows children aged 15 or in grade 9 (which ever comes sooner) to leave school. Ie it is no longer compulsory for these children to attend school. However, the CSG regulations say that children aged 7 to 18 in receipt of the CSG must be in school or another educational institution. How should we interpret this clash between the two laws?

11. Monitoring implementation We recommend that Parliament monitor implementation carefully as “conditions” are new to South Africa and it cannot therefore be predicted how they will impact on children’s access to grants. We can provide Parliament with reports from civil society organisations who work daily with children living in poverty.

12. Moving to an exception based reporting system The Departments Chief Operating Officer mentioned that the Department was considering an "exception reporting" system to make the system work more effectively. This would mean that instead of 8 million caregivers having to submit school reports to the DG every 6 months, and the DG having to process these 8 million reports - the school will rather send lists of absent children to the DG and these will be compared to the SOCPEN database to see if the child is receiving a CSG. If yes – a social worker will be sent to find out why they are not in school. If they are not receiving a CSG – a social worker can also be sent to help the family access a CSG and get the child back into school. The majority of children in receipt of the CSG are attending school. Only a few (probably less than 400 000) are not. Exception based reporting therefore makes more sense and will be more effective (and cost effective) than the DG and Minmec sifting through 8 million reports every six months. Exception based reporting will require very close co-operation between DOE and DoSD. If this co-operation can be achieved – many vulnerable children will be identified and referred for support.