1. 1 Early Childhood Development: Expenditure and Budget 29 th August 2008 SCOF

2. 2 Social Development ECD is not a new service area for the sector. Therefore there are existing baselines. Status of ECD was elevated due to its inclusion in the social sector EPWP. Allocations for ECD over the past few years have boosted the sector budget

3. 3 Contextualised ECD budget ECD does not feature as a stand alone item on the budget structure and it is therefore not visible. This makes it difficult to monitor ECD allocation and expenditure According to the budget structure of the sector, ECD fits in within the Child Care & Protection subprogramme Child Care & Protection (CCP) forms part of Social Welfare Service (SWS) Therefore, budget & expenditure trends of both SWS and CCP provides the context for ECD budgets & expenditure.

4. 4 Context of ECD budget

5. 5 Social Welfare Services

6. 6 SWS transfers to NPI’s per province Transfers to NPI’s increase from R1.3b in 2004 to a projected R4b in 2010. Gauteng shows a real growth of 20% in NPI spending going forward. Gauteng’s budget for transfers have always been significantly higher than other provinces even other ‘rich provinces’ such as Western Cape.

7. 7 2007/08 Children’s Budget

8. 8 Provincial Child Care & Protection Budget Provincial spending on children increases from R838 m in 2004 to a projected R2.5b in 2010 showing a 19% real growth over this period. FS & GT (24,5%) & NW (30,7%)shows the strongest real growth in %, terms but this is from a low base (NW). Gauteng reflects the highest spending followed by KZN.

9. 9 Child Care Eco Classification 2008 budget 56%(R783 m) of the Child Care & protection Budget is allocated to transfers & subsidies. 33% (R466m) is left for departmental operations, including compensation of employees. Not based on all provinces

10. 10 CCP spending against Budget Spending on CCP over the past 2 years is above 97% Over the past 2 years Mpu, NW have the lowest spending ranging from 76% to 87%.

11. 11 CCP 1 st Quarter spending LP is the slowest spending province at 11%. KZN has already spent 30% of its CPP budget Excluding NW expenditure, provinces in total have spent 24% of the allocation for CCP.

12. 12 Performance related data

13. 13 General Observations from 2008 budget statements Benchmark Analysis.xls ECD was identified as a sector funding priority for 2008 MTEF (was also the case in the 2006 MTEF). As indicated earlier, it is not possible to trace direct ECD funding. On analysing the 2008 budget statement, the CCP subprogramme budget was increased by R1.1 billion for the 2008 MTEF. Based on this increase and the sectors strong focus on ECD, it can easily be assumed that a significant amount will be allocated towards ECD. The Economic classification yields a different scenario. Only R155 m additional over the 2008 MTEF was allocated to transfers to NPI’s. This is a cause for concern, as the bulk of ECD spending are transfers to NPI’s.

14. 14 ECD in Education In the Education sector, ECD is at a programmatic level. It contains the following sub programmes: –Grade R in Public Schools –Grade R in Community Centres –Pre Grade R –Professional Services –Human Resource Development –Conditional Grant

15. 15 Pre Grade R contextualised While the focus of the meeting is on Pre Grade R, it is NB to provide the context of the ECD programme as a whole. Pre Grade R only featured in Education budgets from 2006/07 financial year onwards. The role of the provincial department of Education is to fund the training of ECD practitioners and pay the respective stipends Both the payment of stipends & training are classified differently by provinces.

16. 16 ECD expenditure trends Over the 7 year period ECD expenditure is projected to grow by 40% Grade R in Public schools is projected to grow by 38% Pre Grade R shows a phenomenal % growth of 82% over the period jumping from R0 in 2005/06 to R432 million in the outer year. Over the period, Pre Grade R comprises 9% of ECD expenditure

17. 17 Based on info submitted as part of EPWP reporting for: –2007/08: 5246 ECD practitioners were trained, stipends were between R750- R1500 (mostly R1000) –2008/09: A projected 18479 are to be trained & stipends are to be aligned to R1000.

18. 18 Pre Grade R in provinces There was no expenditure for Pre Grade R in 2005/06 financial year In 2006/07 & 2007/08, only EC & Gauteng recorded any expenditure for pre Grade R This picture changes looking forward over the medium term. Expenditure on Pre grade R is projected to grow by 40% over the medium term increasing from R157m in 2008/09 to a projected R432m in 2011/12.

19. 19 Pre Grade R in provinces cont. Mpu & WC are the only 2 provinces that don’t project any spending for Pre Grade R Limpopo has the largest budget for Pre Grade R GT (68%), KZN (69%) & NW (67%) yield the highest growth. It must be noted that all provinces are not recording all the ECD 0-4 year funding against Pre grade R.

20. 20 Spending against budget % spending on the ECD programme has progressively been reducing over the past 3 years. It reduces from 93% in 2005/06 to 74% in 2007/08 The trend for Pre Grade R is however the opposite. An overspend of 141% and 408% are reflected for 2006/07 and 2008/09 respectively.

21. 21 1 st quarter spend 1 st quarter ECD spending is slow at 12%. LP & GT are particularly slow at 1% & 5% respectively. FS & KZN are the only provinces that have spent in excess of 20% of budget even though the benchmark for 1 st quarter spend is 25%.

22. 22 Some challenges The roles and responsibilities of the of Social Development and Education sectors are not clear. There may be room for re-conceptualisation of ECD 0-4. According to the policy, other departments like Health are also meant to be on board as well as the local municipality, given that that sphere has responsibilities wrt child care facilities. All of this has been compounded with using the EPWP approach to the roll-out of ECD services. ECD should not be viewed primarily as a job creation activity but rather as providing a quality service to young children. Employment conditions of ECD practitioners need to be adressed.