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9 February 2024

Early Years Entitlements

Following the Funding Update Meeting last night, please find below the key points from the discussion.

East Riding Consultation - Feedback

• Many Thanks to all those providers who completed and returned the East Riding Consultation Survey. We had 163 responses from across the sector, with the following results;
• Question 1- 52% did not want a deprivation supplement adding to the funding from 9 months to 2 years. Therefore, this will continue to be taken from 3 and 4 year old funding only as per government guidance.
• Question 3- 91% of respondents were happy for the SEND funding to be increased by 100k.
• Question 4- 52% of respondents were in favour of changing to monthly payments to be implemented from September 2024.

Early Years Funding Rates 2024/5

On the Thursday, 8 February 2024, the Full Council Budget Meeting approved the agreement made by Schools Forum on Thursday, 25 January 2024 to pass the following funding rates for the coming year.

9 months + funded entitlement = £9.71 per hour

2-year funding entitlement (both elements) = £7.15 per hour

3 & 4 year funding entitlement = £5.18 per hour

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) = £0.68 per hour

Disability Access Fund (DAF)= £910 per annum

Updated Guidance and IT Systems

The Department for Education have updated the Statutory Guidance, Model Agreement, and Parental Agreements for Local Authorities

• The Local Authority are currently reviewing and updating these documents.
• We are looking to send them out to providers the w/c 4 March for return by the 31, March 2024.
• The Access Group who provides the Local Authority with Synergy have said that the updates to the system will be available to us the w/c 12 February.
• A brief webinar to Local Authorities took place on the 31 January 2024.
• Once the LA have been provided with updated and run a ‘test’ with it, we will look to produce updated guidance notes and potentially some online webinars depending on the scale of the changes.
• Codes can still be checked for 2-year funding using the existing ECS Checker.

Next Steps & Actions for the Local Authority

• First of the Early Years Entitlements specific mailouts to be sent on Friday.
• Respond to the questions raised during the meeting on the 8 February in a Q&A document.
• Develop information around the change to monthly payments.
• Localised sufficiency meetings to start next month- dates/venues to be forwarded.
• New Provider and Parental Agreements to be sent out to providers.
• First version of the sufficiency audit to be sent out to providers.
• Updated information and possible sessions on the changes to Synergy to be released.
• Develop and distribute publicity, social media and events.

We appreciate there is a lot of information for providers to digest at the moment and we thank you as always for your continued support in caring for the young children of the East Riding.

If you have any questions or queries, please e-mail fish@eastriding.gov.uk and we will respond as soon as we can.

The Early Years Team