The Early Years Finance Team appreciates your on-going dedication and commitment to children and families in your area and would like to send you a big ….
“THANK YOU”
Wishing you all:
A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2025
Every funded PVI Early Years setting in England is required to provide their local authority with their Early Years Census data on the above date.
You will receive further guidance regarding the Census in early January 2025.
DfE guidance can be viewed here:
2025 Early Years' Census - Gov.UK
Please be reminded that the provider portal will remain open for the submission of Jan/Feb 2025 ‘Estimated’ hours until Tuesday 17 December 2024.
The total term time weeks for the Jan/Feb 2025 period is 6 weeks.
To support with the submission of Estimated hours, please refer to the guidance on how to Submit estimated hours of attendance before the start of term
Please be reminded that it is the provider’s responsibility to submit accurate information on to the portal. Where ‘Estimated’ hours differ from the ‘Actual’ submissions for that period, payments will be reconciled in the following month. Should this leave any over payment remaining, funds will be automatically deducted from further payments until any outstanding amounts are repaid.
IMPORTANT: Where ‘Estimated’ hours are not submitted within the given timescale, the local authority will assume providers do not have any funded children in either of the age groups and no ‘interim’ funding payment will be made in January 2025.
Once all the information has been submitted, please ensure you have clicked ‘Send Claim’. You will see a green tick when your claim has been submitted.
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 e-mail: cs.enquiries.groupcare@derbyshire.gov.uk; cs.enquiries.childminders@derbyshire.uk; cs.enquiries.schools@derbyshire.gov.uk and an Officer will make contact with you.
Please ensure that ALL HMRC code start and end dates are checked for new children to the setting, before offering a place to a child, ensuring the start date is relevant to the term in which the child will be commencing their funded place.
Eligibility start dates:
31 December to take up a place during the term beginning 1 January
31 March to take up a place during the term beginning 1 April
31 August to take up a place during the term beginning 1 September
For new children wishing to access a funded place, please be reminded that where parents have not applied for an HMRC code before the deadline date, for example: 31 December 2024, they will not be able to access the entitlement funding for the following term - in this case spring term 2025.
To ensure eligibility for the following term, please also be reminded to ensure HMRC codes are regularly checked for existing children.
As you are aware, the ‘Green’ tick on the ECS checker shows that a code has been matched (found). However, it does not necessarily mean that a code is in date for the relevant term.
In the next few weeks, the Department for Education (DfE) will perform updates to the Eligibility Checking System and therefore the ‘Green’ eligibility tick will be changing to ‘Yellow’. This will act as a visual aid to remind providers to then check that the code is valid for the following term.
Please be extra vigilant when checking the eligibility of a code, to ensure it is compatible for the relevant term in which the child is to access their funded place. This will ensure you don’t encounter problems when submitting data on to the provider portal.
Could we please remind all providers of the importance of the FE1 form being fully completed as this is the contract between yourself and the parent.
It continues to be recognised that the following information is often omitted:
- Parent/carer signatures.
- Contract start date (to be completed by the provider).
- Provider’s name: please note for childminders, this should be your Ofsted registered name.
Ethnicity Section: Where parents have chosen to complete this section, the ethnicity should be reflected accurately on the provider portal.
If you have any queries with any of the above information, please e-mail the relevant generic in-box.
To support both current and new early years’ providers with ease of accessibility, the 2025 Provider Agreement is now available to view on Derbyshire County Council’s website.
Please access the link below to access the Agreement which commences in January 2025:
Early years' provider agreement - Derbyshire County Council
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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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