Social services gets smart

Cellphones and email will be co-opted in the City’s drive to get help to its poor citizens, with SMS technology one of the new elements in the Siyasizana Expanded Social Package.
TECHNOLOGY is in the pipeline to boost the City’s ability to help its needy citizens through its Expanded Social Package (ESP), Siyasizana, making it easier for beneficiaries to access the programme’s benefits.

MMC Nonceba MolweleMMC for health social services Nonceba Molwele (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)Using SMS technology and email, the system will digitally link those with specific needs to services delivered by all City departments, government agencies and non-profit, non-governmental and community-based groups that work with the City.

For the first time, there will be a total view of citizens’ needs and the capacity of the government and its partners to respond.

More than R500-million is spent each year through Siyasizana, a basket of poverty alleviation benefits. Subsidies are given for services such as water, electricity, rates, refuse removal and sanitation to citizens earning below R3 681 a month.

People who can be registered under the programme include property owners, tenants, lodgers and homeless people. It is not limited to City account holders and along with its links to wider welfare and jobs programmes, the ESP is a service frontline for the City’s poor.

The latest version of Siyasizana includes features that will make it easier for landlords in large blocks of flats to pass benefits on to their poor tenants.

Email and cellphone
Accenture, the management consulting and technology services company, has been brought on board as the programme takes up the new technology, which will automate registration of beneficiaries and enhance the management of benefits through the use of SMSes and email.

Using cellphone short message services (SMS) is intended to make it easier for the City to communicate with the beneficiaries of its services. It is expected to drastically increase access, improve case management and enhance communication with stakeholders, including NGOs and social workers.

InternetThe City is improving Siyasizana by introducing modern technologyIt is estimated that there are between 800 0000 and a million people who earn below the monthly threshold of R3 681 in Joburg, living in a variety of circumstances. These individuals account for the bulk of the 820 000 estimated to be living informally, as well as the estimated 1,1 million working age adults who are not connected to the formal or informal economies.

“We are entering a new era of service delivery in the City of Johannesburg, starting with the provision of critical basic services to those who need them the most – the low income earners and unemployed people,” said Nonceba Molwele, the member of the mayoral committee for health and social services.

“Since we first launched the ESP, more than 650 000 individuals have been identified as qualifying citizens living in Johannesburg, many of them identified through the database of those receiving state pensions and child support grants through paypoints in the city. Over 140 000 are already receiving rebates linked to the property on which they live, and as a result we have set ourselves a new target of extending more services to 300 000 people per annum,” said Molwele.

Social services
Lee Naik, Accenture South Africa’s executive director: IT strategy and transformation, who has helped drive the project, said: “In alignment with the City’s growth strategy, and conscious of the tight budgets and growing demands for social services by the most needy people, it’s important that Joburg leverages the latest technology to streamline access to services and benefits in a truly integrated and citizen-centric approach.”

The new system introduced the use of cellphone SMS services and “significantly enhances case management and the City’s ability to reach more people and offer additional benefits to citizens”, added Naik.

Job creation is an integral part of the ESP, and more than 9 000 people have already been placed in income-generating opportunities since enrolling with the programme, indicating the progress the City is making in helping some of its citizens out of the poverty bracket.

People living in informal settlementsThere is help coming for people living in informal settlementsThe ESP is the only register of indigent citizens in the country that operates as a one-stop shop for poor citizens who need to access government and welfare services. Looking ahead, the programme will focus on improving the landlord registration process with enhanced interfaces and online forms to capture and validate information provided by needy citizens.

It will also introduce mobile registration and case management for people living in informal settlements, as well as additional benefits including rental subsidies and transport expenses.

“The City is determined to ensure social inclusion by addressing some of the major basic and infrastructure needs of low income and unemployed citizens. In line with our drive towards a ‘zero deprivation’ scenario, we intend investing a greater portion of our budget into the most deprived areas as we move towards meeting our Millennium Development Goals,” said Molwele.

The City plans to make the ESP register the single access point for at least 500 000 people a year receiving services such as housing, transport and rental subsidies, grants, food security support, education and medical assistance, by 2016.