Newsletter for Early Years Funding providers in West Sussex
Monday 6 January 2025
This term's newsletter includes:
- Consultation on Early Years Funded Entitlement payment schedules - update
- Mandatory Early Years Census 2025 - action required
- Spring term 2025 actuals claims - action required
- Working Families eligibility codes
- Parent Declaration forms
- Early Years Pupil Premium
- Claiming Disability Access Fund
- Help us to answer your queries more efficiently
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We shared a special newsletter with you on 23 December 2024. This newsletter outlined a summary of your responses to the Stage Two EYFE payment consultation.
As you may know, every year we carry out the Early Years Census for the Department for Education (DfE). The Early Years Census is crucial because it is used to calculate the amount of funding West Sussex County Council (WSCC) receives for funded early education.
The Early Years Census is mandatory for all Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) providers claiming funding for at least one child in spring term 2025. If you are registered to provide EYFE but are not claiming for any children in spring term, you do not need to complete the Early Years Census. Please read the Important information - Census 2025 letter for further information.
The deadline for submission is Friday 31 January 2025 at 5.00pm.
The Online Provider Portal is now open for you to submit your Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) claims for the '9 month plus', '2 year old' and '3 and 4 year old' terms.
- Headcount day: Thursday 16 January 2025
- Deadline for submissions: Tuesday 21 January 2025 at 11.59pm (this deadline is shorter than previous terms). This shorter deadline will give the EYFE Finance Team more time to resolve clash of hour queries before payments are due. This deadline will be subject to further review.
To support your claim, please see our 'information to consider when submitting spring term 2025 actuals claims' document. 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 24 February 2025. 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.
For an Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families eligibility code to be valid for spring term, parents must have applied for, or reconfirmed, their eligibility code before 31 December 2024.
- The code ‘start date’ must be on or before 31 December 2024.
- The code 'end date' must be after 1 January 2025.
- If the code end date is before 1 January 2025 and the child accessed EYFE for Working Families with you last term, the ‘Grace period end date’ must cover the spring term 2025.
We would like to remind providers to 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. A yellow banner does not necessarily mean they are eligible. To understand if a code can be used for the current term, please use the Eligibility Checker help guide.
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When checking code validity, a yellow banner will appear with the message to the left 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. |
Please remember, for the spring 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 16 January 2025.
EYPP and Deprivation supplement combined is an additional payment of £1.17 per funded hour for up to 15 hours. It is available for children of all age ranges who are eligible and in receipt of Early Years Funded Entitlements. EYPP is not applied to the 3 and 4 year old Extended EYFE for Working Families. Children may be eligible for EYPP if they meet certain economic 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 actuals 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 then supply you with evidence. Please check this evidence and once you are satisfied that they meet the criteria, you will need to submit this as part of your actuals claim. Please see step 40 of the actuals help guide for further guidance.
DAF is available for all age ranges. If you wish to claim a DAF payment for a child this term, please ensure that you email us with 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 16 January 2025).
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 16 January 2025, we will aim 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 awarded 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 would you do the following when emailing the Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) team:
- make sure that you are using the correct email address - free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk should be used for all EYFE matters, apart from emails that are directly sent to you by the EYFE Finance Team,
- make sure you include the email trail relating to your query, so we can understand what has already been discussed, and
- if the query is about a new topic, please start a new email.
Please also ensure you give us as much information as possible, such as:
- children's initials and dates of birth,
- details to check a child's EYFE for Working Families code (including parent NI number),
- name/address of the setting you are sharing funding with, and
- what provider you are contacting us from.
Following these steps will allow us to give you tailored advice without multiple emails needing to be exchanged to find out further 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 trail, 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. 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 email the Early Years Funding Team at free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk.
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