Newsletter for Early Years Funding providers in West Sussex
Thursday 12 September 2024
This term's newsletter includes:
- Consultation on Early Years Funded Entitlement payment schedules – update
- Autumn term 2024 Actuals claims - now open
- Working Family eligibility codes
- Parent declaration forms
- Early Years Pupil Premium
- 2 year old Local Authority Issued Early Years Funded Entitlements - checking eligibility
- Claiming Disability Access Fund
- Help us to answer your queries more efficiently
- Autumn term Post Headcount Exceptional Payment requests for eligible working families of children aged 9 months to 2 years old
- Viewing your payment details on the online provider portal
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Please see our special newsletter, dated 9 September 2024, for a summary of your response to the EYFE payment consultation, which ran for six weeks from 21 June to 2 August 2024.
The Online Provider Portal is now open for you to submit your Early Years Funded Entitlement claims for the '9 month plus', '2 year old' and '3 and 4 year old' terms.
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Headcount day: Thursday 19 September 2024
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Deadline for submissions: Friday 27 September 2024
To support your claim, please see our important information to consider. For a step-by-step guide on how to claim, please refer to the Actuals help guide and YouTube video available on our web page.
For providers with no outstanding queries, payments will be released week commencing 21 October 2024. Please allow three to five working days for payments to show in your account. If there are any outstanding queries, we will contact you to resolve them.
Thank you for supporting your working families to access the new Early Years Funded Entitlements (EYFE) from April 2024. During the summer term, a total of 4,014 two year olds accessed EYFE for Working Families in West Sussex, which is 93% of the number of codes that were validated. With the launch of the 9 month plus EYFE for Working Families offer, from this autumn term, we know 4,411 codes have been issued in West Sussex with just over half being validated by you.
We would like to remind providers to check and validate codes ahead of a child taking up a place. This requirement is set out in statutory guidance. Providers and local authorities are expected to work together to check codes are valid before offering a place.
Why is this important?
- Ensures the provider receives funding for the child.
- Helps ensure a parent can take up a place for their child from September 2024 and understand their monthly childcare costs.
- Avoids parents incurring an unexpected childcare bill which they may have difficulty paying.
- Provides an early indication to local authorities and the Department for Education of whether parents can find and take up a place.
- Provides early indication of potential sufficiency issues within local areas.
We recommend that you use the Eligibility Checker on the Online Provider Portal to check a child's code before they access their funded hours. This ensures their code is valid and they are able to start accessing their funded place. Below are some tips on how to ensure the code is valid before attempting to claim funding for a child. A green tick does not necessarily mean they are eligible.
 When checking code validity, you will receive a green tick and the above message if the parent has successfully applied for EYFE for Working Families. This message does not mean the code is currently usable; only that an application was received and approved.
To understand if a code can be used for the current term, please use the following guide.
Please remember, for the autumn term, new Parent Declaration Forms should be completed in the following scenarios:
- for all children claiming Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for the first time at your setting,
- for children who have changed the number of EYFE hours being claimed, or there is a change to their details, and/or
- for children wishing to claim Disability Access Fund.
In all circumstances, the Parent Declaration Form needs to be completed fully and signed by the parents/carers and provider by no later than Headcount Day, which is 19 September 2024.
We have seen some providers request that new Parent Declaration Forms are completed for all children every term, this is not required and is an unnecessary administrative burden on you.
EYPP and Deprivation supplement combined is an additional payment of £1.17 per funded hour for up to 15 hours. It is now available for eligible children of all age ranges who are eligible and in receipt of Early Years Funded Entitlements. To confirm, EYPP is not applied to the 3 and 4 year old Extended funding. Children may be eligible for EYPP if they meet certain benefits or credits criteria. In order for us to check a child's eligibility under this criteria, you must ensure that you tick the tick box 'To give consent to eligibility check for EYPP' as set out in the guidance.
Children may also be eligible if they:
- have been in local authority care for one day or more in England or Wales,
- have been adopted from care in England or Wales, or
- have left care under a special guardianship order or child arrangements order in England or Wales.
To identify children eligible for EYPP under this criteria, please ask families if they meet any of the criteria and they must supply you with evidence. Please then check this evidence and once you are satisfied they meet the criteria, you will need to submit as part of your Actuals claim. Please see step 40 of the Actuals help guide for further guidance.
Feedback from some parents over the summer term told us that when they are looking to start a funded place they have been asked to supply an 11 digit code. Children who have been awarded 2 year old LA Issued EYFE receive a six digit code, which is provided by the LA not HMRC (HMRC provide the codes for Working Families EYFE).
You need to make sure that you have seen the child's award letter, which also confirms when they can start accessing a place. The letter (which is normally sent to the parent/carer via email) is pictured below.
For children approved in other LAs, their code may be different. This is due to different LA systems. In all cases please ensure that you have seen the child's award letter or email before providing a funded place.
All 2 year old LA issued codes do not need to be reconfirmed, once the funding is awarded it is not taken away and parents/carers cannot fall out of eligibility.
DAF is now available for all age ranges. If you wish to claim a DAF payment for a child this term, please ensure that you email the following evidence:
- a copy of the letter confirming the child's current Disability Living Allowance award, and
- a copy of the child's Parent Declaration Form (using the current April 2024 version, signed by the parents/carers and provider, no later than Headcount Day, which this term is 19 September 2024).
Please ensure that the Parent Declaration Form is completed in full.
If an out of date or incomplete version of the Parent Declaration Form is sent as part of a claim, the claim will be declined but you will be able to submit the correct paperwork the following term. If you send in the evidence by 17 September 2024, we will endeavour to check the evidence and give you the opportunity to rectify issues before Headcount. If issues are resolved we will be able to approve your claim and add the approved DAF claim to your Actuals payment.
Evidence should be emailed to free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk.
To help make sure that your query is dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, please could you do the following when emailing the team:
- Make sure that you are using the correct email address - free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk should be used for all Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) matters apart from emails that are sent to you by the EYFE Finance Team.
- Make sure you are including the email thread so we can understand what has already been discussed.
- If the query is about a new topic, please start a fresh email thread.
Please also ensure you give us as much information as possible, such as:
- child initials and date of birth,
- details to check a child's EYFE for Working Families code,
- name/address of the setting you are sharing funding with, and
- what provider you are contacting us from.
This will allow us to give you tailored advice without the need to go back and forth to find out information before we can assist you.
The EYFE Finance Team deals with specific queries regarding individual Estimate and Actuals submissions (for example clash of hours queries). They will contact you via their team inbox fe.finance@westsussex.gov.uk. Please respond to them directly and include the email thread, so they can identify which issue you are responding to. The issues that the EYFE Finance Team contact you about will impact your payments, so please respond fully and without delay. If they have requested the Parent Declaration form for a specific child, please ensure that it is attached to your reply. Please note they will only contact you regarding specific queries with your submitted claims, and we ask that you only respond to answer these queries so that all issues can be resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible. If you need general EYFE-related support and guidance, please only contact the Early Years Funding Team at free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk.
The Department for Education are asking local authorities to report the autumn term take up of the 2 year old and the new 9 to 23 month old Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families. We will gather this data during week commencing 4 November 2024. This will fall on a later date than the timing of our normal termly Headcount week (19 September 2024). Therefore, this additional data count for autumn term will include the following funded children:
- 2 year old EYFE for Working Families submitted via Actuals (based on attendance at Headcount)
- 9 months plus EYFE for Working Families submitted via actuals (based on attendance at Headcount), and
- 2 year old EYFE for Working Families submitted via the PHEP process (for children starting at a provider from 23 September to 8 November 2024)
- 9 month plus EYFE for Working Families submitted via the PHEP process (for children starting at a provider from 23 September to 8 November 2024).
As this will inform adjustments to our funding allocation for autumn term 2024, West Sussex County Council has the flexibility to approve any PHEP requests for children aged 9 months to 2 years old, who wish to access an EYFE for Working Families place from 23 September, up to and including 8 November 2024. These PHEPs will be accepted without the need for an exceptional reason.
Please note, approval is subject to a valid EYFE for Working Families eligibility code for the autumn term, and our usual checks. This flexibility applies to autumn term 2024 only.
The online PHEP request form can be found on our web page. PHEPs for the above children must be submitted to us no later than Wednesday 13 November 2024. For children starting an EYFE for Working Families funded place after 8 November 2024, normal requirements will apply and a child must have an exceptional reason to start post Headcount.
Once payments have been made, you can see a breakdown of your Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) funding payments via the OPP by carrying out the following steps:
- log on to the OPP,
- click on the ‘Funding’ tab,
- click on ‘Summary’,
- select the relevant funding term and funding age group, and
- view the breakdown of any Estimate and Actuals payments relating to that term.
The totals section at the bottom of the page under ‘Child Weightings’ will show any funding you have received for children eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium.
 If a date shows next to 'processed date’ this means the payment has been released. Payments can take up to three to five working days to show in your account.
 Once payment has been made, you will be able to view a breakdown of any children who are eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium or Disability Access Fund in the Actuals tab. For step by step guidance on how to view your payment summary please refer to the OPP help guides.
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