This project formed part of a broader initiative to understand the planning, implementation and financing dynamics of some 40 government policies. The overall aim was to provide:
- a detailed understanding of the cost elements, expenditure drivers, and expenditures;
- a mapping of the allocation and spending patterns across all spheres of government, public entities and frontline service delivery sites;
- an in-depth understanding of historical expenditure patterns;
- proposals for improving budget allocations over the MTEF in the national and provincial spheres;
- proposals for improving ways of linking policy intent and programmatic design, based on a better understanding of causal linkages; and
- a detailed analysis of the implementation logic, enabling critical performance measures to be developed.
Cornerstone followed the PER methodology, developed by National Treasury (GTAC), to carry out this project.
Key insights
The current model of welfare delivery is to use NPOs to provide welfare services. South Africa has approximately 25 000 individual welfare organisations and 50 000 non-welfare NPOs. Government allocates about R2.3 billion to these welfare organisations, and some raise funds from private donors. An extensive registration and monitoring regime is needed to ensure that they function as required, and spend government money appropriately; the current regime costs the national and provincial social welfare departments about R250 million. The national Department of Social Welfare has promulgated a set of regulations on the administration and monitoring of welfare services that, if fully implemented, would cost about R1.1 billion.
By combining the current, separate, registration processes, eliminating forced reregistration and being more pragmatic about inspection processes (e.g. using auxiliary social workers), the study proposed savings of R614 million, and suggests that a combined budget of R427 million would be sufficient to ensure proper oversight.