Research 

‘Section 7(2) of the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution places an obligation on the State to give effect to all the rights in the Bill of Rights. This includes children’s rights to family care or alternative care, social services, and protection from abuse and neglect. To meet its obligation the State must ensure that the required conditions and services to fulfil these rights are available. The new Children’s Act [No 38 of 2005] as amended by the Children’s Amendment Act [No 41 of 2007] now clearly sets out what services the State must provide to give effect to the rights listed above. These include: partial care facilities (crèches); early childhood development programmes; prevention and early intervention services; drop-in centres; protection services (including a support scheme for child-headed households); foster care and cluster foster care; adoption; child and youth care centres (children’s homes, places of safety, schools of industry, reform schools, secure care facilities, and shelters for street children). To make these services available for the many vulnerable children that need them, the state needs to allocate adequate budget to each service area. The Act says that the provincial MECs for Social Development are responsible for providing and funding all these services with the budgets allocated to them by the provincial legislatures. Monitoring the budget allocations and expenditure for these services is a good way of measuring a province’s progress in giving effect to the Children’s Act and therefore in giving effect to the rights of children. This document, therefore, examines what the most recent budget estimates for the Western Cape Department of Social Development, as recorded under Vote 7, tell us about the provincial government’s intentions in respect of implementing the Children’s Act.’ [Introduction]