A caring and self-reliant society.
Provision of integrated comprehensive and sustainable social development services.
Department of Social Development has the responsibility of leading in partnership with stakeholders, outcome 13 by building an inclusive and responsive social protection system. As prescribed in the long term vision of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2030, the social protection system has the ability to assist families to achieve the basic standard of living and make sure that no-one slip below the minimum standard of living.
In this regard, the department has identified in accordance with the NDP 2030 a targeted number of 13 334 zero income households to be migrated out of poverty over the next five years. The services provided by the department are statutory services, counseling services, therapeutic services and programmes, treatment services, after care services, institutionalized services such as support groups with children and parents.
The implementation and outcome of the service delivery goals are guided by the mandate of the Department namely:
• To build an inclusive and responsive social protection system.
• To reform social welfare services as outlined in the Medium Term Strategic Framework 2014-2019 ,
• To provide access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) services and strengthen community development interventions as the three sub-outcomes to be achieved through expanding service provision to the vulnerable groups, whilst creating support networks through service provision to respond to the needs of each vulnerable group e.g. people with disabilities, older persons, zero income families or children living and working on the street.
The nature of the services rendered by the Department of Social Development in complementing partnership with stakeholders to various vulnerable groups, requires a service delivery methodology that advocate for teamwork amongst the range of social service professionals within a community to create therapeutic support networks at family level, social protection support networks at soup kitchen, Drop-
in- centre , community level and developmental support networks at Youth Service Centre level for the youth.
The Estimates of Provincial Revenue and Expenditure (EPRE) is a book published along with the tabling of the budget for the new financial year.
A department's programmes are the activities that it spends money on during the financial year. Different programmes have different budgets, depending on their objectives and available budgets. More detail on the programmes is available in the department's Estimates of Provincial Expenditure documents.
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In addition to exploring the department budget by programmes, the budget is classified according to Economic Classification.
The Economic Classification of a department's expenditure distinguishes between various categories of current expenditure and capital expenditure. The purpose of the economic classification is to categorise transactions according to type of object or input, such as compensation of employees or capital assets.
This visualisation highlights how many categories of expenditure there are for this department at Economic Classification level 4, and which ones are the biggest. year -- 2025-26
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Explore how the budget is distributed across spending items.
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Budget programmes will differ in composition of spending, from compensation of employees, transfers to other agencies and goods and services, depending on their objective.
Select an Economic Classification to filter the data in this chart and see how much programmes spend on that category.
Only the categories that this department spends on are shown in the filter.
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The Adjusted Estimates of Provincial Revenue and Expenditure (AEPRE) is a book published along with the tabling of the adjusted budget.
Budgeted and actual expenditure for a department can increase or decrease from year to year. Changes in expenditure can follow shifts in departmental activities, priorities, efficiencies, and the price of goods and services over time.
The chart shows the department's latest available historical expenditure for past years, and planned expenditure for the current year and medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) years.
The phase used for each year is shown below:
Compare the adjusted appropriation to the main appropriation to see whether changes were made in the adjustments budget to the appropriations set out in the budget. The audited outcome shows what was actually spent.
Note: Direct charges against the National Revenue Fund are excluded.
Read more in the Annual Report on the department's website.
Compare the amount of budget allocated to each of this deparment’s programmes at each phase in the process leading up to the Audited Outcome
National Treasury, departments and commitees are busy with different things depending on the time of year: