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The Early Years Finance team continue to receive queries from parents seeking clarification on what their entitlement is when accessing the early years funding.
Important: All providers delivering the early years entitlements must adhere to the Early education and childcare - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and also to the terms and conditions outlined in the local authority’s Provider Agreement (where applicable) signed by early years providers. Providers must adhere to these agreed specifications at all times when delivering the funded hours. Providers who fail to comply with these requirements, are likely to have funding payments withheld by the local authority or be removed from the Directory of Providers.
As we are all aware, the cost of living is impacting on long-term sustainability therefore, providers may be considering increasing their fees, implementing additional charges or reviewing their model of delivery. In all circumstances, providers must continue to adhere to the following:
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must not charge the parents/carers of funded children, higher rates for additional hours or meals that result in them not benefitting from the early entitlement funding. All parents/carers must see a reduction in their monthly childcare costs.
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cannot charge parents/carers “top-up” fees (the difference between a provider’s normal charge to parents/carers and the funding they receive from the local authority to deliver funded places) and cannot charge a registration fee to parents/carers who are only accessing a funded place.
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must not charge parents/carers of children accessing the early years entitlements a service/administration charge to cover business costs eg on-line registers, accommodation, qualified teaching staff, staff training, learning journals etc.
- Independent Schools must be mindful of the impact of additional charges on parents/carers. This may result in waiving the registration fee and uniform charges for funded children in nursery, pre-prep, and reception classes.
- Independent Schools offering the early years entitlements to eligible children in Reception Classes must show the funded hours as free on parent invoices.
The DfE document ‘Early education and childcare - Statutory Guidance for local authorities’ states:
Government funding is intended to cover the cost of delivering 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high quality, flexible childcare which meets the requirements of the EYFS. It is not intended to cover the cost of meals, additional hours, additional services, or some consumables. Parents/carers must benefit financially from the early years entitlement funding.
Therefore, providers are able to charge for meals and snacks as part of an early years entitlement funded place and can also charge for consumables, such as nappies or sun cream, and for services such as trips and specialist tuition. Parents should therefore expect to pay for these, although providers should be mindful of the impact of additional charges on parents, especially the most disadvantaged. Providers, who choose to offer the early years’ entitlements, are responsible for setting their own policy on providing parents with options for alternatives to additional charges, including allowing parents to supply their own meals or nappies, or waiving or reducing the cost of meals and snacks.
We have received a number of queries from parents where providers are charging for consumable items. This is not acceptable and does not adhere to the Statutory Guidance to charge, for example, the following items, as these are required to deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Therefore, providers must not include these in consumable charges:
Pencils
Felt tip pens
Crayons
Paper and card
Paint
Paint brushes
PVA glue and glue sticks
Books
Puzzles
Educational equipment
Toys
As the following items are administration/service charges to cover business costs, providers must not include these in a consumables charge:
Heating and lighting
Hand soap
Paper towels
Toilet roll
Hand gel
Cleaning products
The items above are examples and does not provide an exhaustive list.
To increase fees without this impacting too greatly on parents, providers should consider making parents aware of the Government’s funding schemes such as Tax-Free Childcare.
Delivery Models
Providers can determine how they offer the early years entitlement, including the patterns of delivery. Please ensure your policies / information are clear and transparent to parents around the hours to be claimed, the pattern of delivery and any additional charges. These should be discussed and agreed with parents before they sign a contract (FE1 form) to take up a funded place.
Providers are also required to include in their admissions policy / information how they offer funded hours, including the number of funded only places, if applicable.
Invoicing:
Early years’ providers must ensure their invoices and receipts are clear, transparent, and itemised, allowing parents/carers to see they have received their early years entitlement completely free of charge and fully understand fees paid for additional hours or services. Early years’ providers must ensure that receipts contain their full details so they can be identified as being issued by a specific early years’ provider.
Early years’ providers must be completely transparent about any additional charges.
As you may be aware the DfE’s Early Years Statutory Guidance Early education and childcare - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) has been revised to take account of the government’s new expanded offer, effective from 1 April 2024.
This means that there will be minor changes to the current Provider Agreement. An Addendum and an updated Provider Agreement will be e-mailed to early years providers during March 2024 (where applicable).
The Department for Education (DfE) have announced an update to the application process for parents who already have a Tax-Free Childcare account and who’s reconfirmation window does not open until on or after the 15th February.
The application system requires that parents reconfirm their eligibility for Tax-Free Childcare and working parent entitlements every 3 months, with a 4-week window before the end of the 3-month period when parents can reconfirm. Parents who reconfirmed their Tax-Free Childcare eligibility before 2 January 2024, cannot apply for a code to access the new 2-year-old entitlement until their reconfirmation window next opens.
If the parent’s Tax-Free Childcare reconfirmation window opens on or after the 15th February, they will receive a letter from HMRC before this date with a temporary code. The letter will provide instructions on how to use it to claim their entitlement and the valid temporary (single use) code, which will start with 11.
The manually issued temporary code can be validated in the same way as a digital code. Once the parent has given you their temporary code you should process it as normal, confirming their place for April.
Parents will still have to reconfirm through their Childcare Account when their reconfirmation window opens and will still receive a digital code, but they do not need to wait until this point to confirm their place.
Parents should not contact HMRC before they receive their letter, as HMRC will not be able to provide them with a code before this time.
There may be a small minority of parents that fall out of eligibility in the time between receiving a manually issued (temporary) code and reconfirming their eligibility using their Childcare Account when their reconfirmation window opens. If this does occur, please email the Families Information Service: info.fis@derbyshire.gov.uk.
If a parent’s reconfirmation window opens before 15th February, they will not receive a letter from HMRC and should reconfirm and apply in the usual way.
Parents may want to reserve a place for their two-year-old with you while they wait for their code, and we would encourage you to help them do this where possible. Parents can provide evidence that they receive Tax Free Childcare which will demonstrate that they will automatically be eligible for the new 2-year-old entitlement as the eligibility criteria is the same.
If you have any queries, please email: info.fis@derbyshire.gov.uk.
The FE1 form has been significantly updated in readiness for the government’s expanded offer from April 2024.
Please use the revised form for new children attending the setting. Parents who have signed the previous version of the form do not need to complete a new one.
The revised form is included on the SchoolsNet - Funding and contracts tile.
The Department for Education (DfE) have launched the early years recruitment campaign.
The campaign will promote early years and childcare careers by highlighting the huge difference early years professionals make to young children’s lives and how rewarding working in the sector can be.
There will be a multi-channel broadcast campaign running across TV, cinema, social media, online and radio advertising to boost interest in the sector and support the recruitment of talented staff.
In addition, the campaign will have its own dedicated website. This will direct potential applicants to use the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP’s) Find a Job vacancy platform to search for early years, childcare and wraparound roles in their area.
This service is free to use and will ensure vacancies are seen by a large pool of potential candidates. Providers should use the term ‘early years’ in the title of their job adverts and select ‘Education jobs’ for the job category.
If you have any queries, or experience any issues, please contact DWP Contact us (dwp.gov.uk) and select “I’m an employer and I need help posting my job adverts’’. The Find a Job YouTube channel Find a job service - Employer help - YouTube also provides helpful video tutorials on how to post job adverts and manage your employer account.
In preparation for the roll-out of the expanded offer, the national and local data indicates that provider funding submissions in Derbyshire will surge in uptake, creating an approximate 66% increase in demand. In order for us to deliver this increase in demand and still able to pass-through 97% of the funding allocation, we will be adjusting the stretched funding options to only allow term time funding claims to be submitted via the provider portal from the start of the summer term 2024 for all new funded children.
Providers who are currently submitting stretched funded claims for children via the provider portal, will still be able to continue to do so for the remainder of this academic year.
Important note: Providers can still meet the individual needs of families by delivering the funded hours over the period the provision is open by invoicing accordingly.
Guidance documentation / tools, to help those providers who currently claim the stretched funded hours via the portal, will be available on SchoolsNet alongside the current suite of guidance.
Please be reminded that the provider portal will be open from 14 February – 29 February 2024 for the submission of March Actuals.
Once all the information has been submitted, please remember to click ‘Send Claim’.
You will see a green tick when your claim has been submitted.
December 2023 and January / February 2024 Adjustments:
The portal will also be open from 14 February – 29 February 2024 for ‘Adjustments’ submissions to enable you to include any changes which occurred during the December 2023 and January / February 2024 periods.
Important: please be reminded that ‘Adjustments’ submissions are for children who increase / decrease their hours, start / leave a provision following the closure of Actuals. Adjustments should not be used as an alternative to Actuals.
Please refer to the funding calendar, for provider portal opening dates.
If you experience any difficulties in submitting your data, please refer to the useful guidance information on the SchoolsNet - Funding and contracts tile in the first instance. If you continue to experience difficulties, please use the relevant e-mail: cs.enquiries.childminders@derbyshire.gov.uk; cs.enquiries.groupcare@derbyshire.gov.uk; cs.enquiries.schools@derbyshire.gov.uk and an Officer will make contact with you. Due to the volume of queries being received, please allow the Officer time to respond.
We are currently advertising a vacancy for a new full-time member of the Early Years Finance Team.
Full details about the role, can be found on the Derbyshire County Council jobs website.
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If you are a contracted provider and would like to receive text reminders when the provider portal is open / closed, please ensure you notify us (and Ofsted of course!) of your mobile number.
Where the local authority has received a mobile number from your setting, this will automatically be included in the ‘Texting’ notifications.
Please let us know via email if you wish to be removed from this Service.
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