Social Development Department report lashes government’s approach to tackling social problems
BVI News staff reporter - Thursday, December 27th, 2012 at 9:17 AM
The Social Development Department (SDD) is not satisfied with the method used by government in tackling the social problems in the territory.
In its 2011 report, the SDD noted “government’s inability to shift its service approaches to tackle the root cause of social problems and promote targeted prevention and early intervention strategies.”
“The current practice is built on the assumptions of remedying the problem after it has occurred and as such, additional resources, both human and financial, are thrown at resolving a series of symptoms, rather than tackling and analyzing the root causes.”
The report said failure to develop and promote comprehensive integrated social and economic policies throughout the various spheres of government and private sectors and the traditional practice of not linking social and economic objectives, act as a barrier to accomplishing an integrated social development model.
The report added, “the continued practice of policy designs from only a vertical approach serves only to accomplish the goals and objectives of the line Ministry or department and fails to link decision making across sectors and this all too often results in service fragmentation, service gaps and delivery and wasteful expenditure.”
The report said government’s retirement policy stipulates a mandatory retirement age of 60 years, however, social security policy on age pensions stipulates a qualifying age of 65 years. It said, between these two policies, a five year gap exists between the age requirements for eligibility commencement for retirement benefits and social security age pension.
According to the report, this disparity no doubt could create both social and economic disequilibrium as some retirees might find difficulties living on a reduced income derived only from pension benefits.
“In an effort to address this disparity, perhaps the time is appropriate for government to assess the feasibility of harmonizing the age eligibility requirements to reflect a specific qualifying age requirement to reflect commencement of both benefits concurrently”, the report said.
The Social Development Department Report also spoke to the need to build capacity locally in crucial service sectors such as education, health, social service, judiciary and law enforcement.
It also said the territory’s labour needs must be utilized as the catalyst for training and subsequently building local capacity, in so doing, it said, this would incrementally eliminate the need for the continuous over extensions in recruitment of foreign labour in sensitive sectors.
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