The Social Plan Programme sub-directorate falls under Mineral Regulation. It is responsible for the assessment and monitoring of compliance with the social and labour plans submitted with the applications for mining rights.

One of the objectives of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 2002, Act No 28 of 2002, known as the MPRDA, is to transform the mining and production industries. To ensure effective transformation, applicants are legally required to submit a social and labour plan before mining or production rights will be granted.

A social and labour plan requires applicants to develop and implement:

• Comprehensive human resources development programmes;
• Local economic development programmes; and
• Processes to address situations that may negatively affect the employment of workers.

Human resources development programmes aim at promoting employment and the advancement of the social and economic welfare of the workers.

Local economic development focuses on how the mine or production operation will address the socio-economic needs of the area within which it operates and the area from where it sources its workforce. This is not the corporate social investment that companies have been involved with all along, but rather what the mine or production operation would leave behind.

Processes pertaining to the management of downscaling or retrenchments include processes or mitigation that the operation would put in place should jobs be lost.