A lack of funds is impeding the department of social development's ability to hire more social workers.
Social development deputy director-general Khumbula Ndaba told the parliamentary committee on Wednesday there was no money to hire social workers.
“There is no budget for social workers. We've engaged various provinces including those who have social workers on contract. We've agreed with those provinces to look at extending the contracts because we've looked at the needs of departments.
“We're also engaging with National Treasury. There's been constant refrain from National Treasury that there is no budget [to employ more social workers]. The department at provincial level should look at reorganising itself and make budget adjustments,” he said.
Ndaba said he couldn't give a figure of how many social workers the department needed.
In an opening statement to the committee, department of social development (DSD) minister Lindiwe Zulu said the department and the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) had finalised the amendment of the regulations to the Social Assistance Act.
According to Zulu, the amendments, which form part of a comprehensive legal solution to address the foster care backlog, would come into effect in the new financial year.
“The introduction of this piece of legislation will bring the much-needed relief to many households, including child-headed households who for many years had to contend with the administrative burden related to compliance with the foster care system, which is made worse by the lack of social workers,” she said.
When the new legislation comes into effect, more social workers will be capacitated.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the department at national level appointed 1,300 workers to provide psychosocial support to those affected.
The first phase of appointments were for three months commencing in June and July 2020 and the second phase commenced in November and December 2020 until March 31 2021.
Provinces appointed a combined 3,000 social workers on contract to provide support for the period of December 2021 to March 2022.
In its annual performance plan, the department of social development noted there was a lack of a government-wide plan, worrying the department might be saddled with unemployed social work graduates.
“As a result of the DSD social work bursary programme's inability to absorb social work graduates and a lack of a government-wide plan, there is a chance that social work graduates may remain unemployed, which may lead to wasteful expenditure and a rise in social ills,” the report said.
Recently, Ndaba had said there were about 9,000 unemployed social work graduates. This figure is expected to increase.
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