Newsletter for Early Years Funding providers in West Sussex
Tuesday 29 April 2025
This term's newsletter includes:
- Summer term 2025 actuals claims - action required
- Parent Declaration forms
- Early Years Pupil Premium
- Claiming Disability Access Fund
- Inclusion Funding - changes for summer term 2025
- Monthly payments - progress update
- Changes to the statutory guidance
- Applying to amend your Early Years Funded Entitlement offer
- Help us to answer your queries more efficiently
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In newsletter #16/2025, we confirmed 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.
To support your claim, please see our 'information to consider when submitting summer term 2025 actuals claims' document. For a step-by-step guide on how to claim, please refer to the 'How to claim child-level funding (actuals)' help guide on our web page.
As a reminder, please see the key dates below:
- Headcount day: Thursday 8 May 2025
- Deadline for submissions: Friday 16 May 2025 at 11.59pm
Please remember, for the summer term 2025, 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
- 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 8 May 2025. You do not need to complete a new Parent Declaration form each year, only in the above circumstances where information has changed or you are directly advised by the Early Years Funded Entitlement team.
EYPP and Deprivation supplement combined is an additional payment of £1.50 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 (EYFE). 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 EYPP box next to the 'Tick to give consent to Eligibility Checking for' section, as set out in the actuals guidance and highlighted in the picture below.
 Children may also be eligible for EYPP if they have:
- been in local authority care for one day or more in England or Wales
- been adopted from care in England or Wales
- left care under a special guardianship order or child arrangements order in England or Wales
To identify children eligible for EYPP, please ask families if they meet any of the relevant criteria. If they do 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 41 of the actuals help guide for further guidance.
DAF is funding which supports children in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to access an early years place. For example, DAF can be used to support you to make reasonable adjustments to your settings provision and/or help with your building capacity. This could be for the child in receipt of DLA or for the benefit of other children attending the setting. DAF has increased to £938 per year this term (from £910), and is available to all Early Years Funded Entitlement age groups. If you wish to claim a DAF payment for a child this term, you will need to complete the new DAF evidence form, and provide the following when completing the form:
- a copy of the letter confirming the child's current DLA award
- a copy of the child's Parent Declaration form (using the current April 2025 version, signed by the parents/carers and provider, no later than headcount day, which this term is 8 May 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 provided, the claim may be declined or payment delayed. If you send in the evidence by Thursday 8 May 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.
If you are planning to apply for Inclusion Funding for a child this term, please ensure you follow the process outlined on our Inclusion Funding web page by Friday 30 May 2025, so they can be considered at the panel which begins on 16 June 2025.
We have made a change to Inclusion Funding from this term; children approved for Inclusion Funding at the panel taking place in the summer term will receive Inclusion Funding for the full summer term if they have accessed EYFE with the applying provider. This is a change from the current process where, for example, a child considered for Inclusion Funding in the summer term would begin receiving Inclusion Funding in autumn term.
Please also note that the rates for Inclusion Funding have changed, with an increase of 10% applied to all bands:
- Band A - 3 and 4 year olds in receipt of EYFE - £330 one-off payment
- Band B - 3 and 4 year olds in receipt of EYFE - £1,320 per year - £440 per term
- Band C Universal - 3 and 4 year olds in receipt of EYFE - £3,960 per year - £1,320 per term
- Band C Extended - 3 and 4 year olds in receipt of Extended EYFE - £5,610 per year - £1,870 per term
- Band D – 9 months plus and 2 year olds in receipt of EYFE - £1,980 per year - £660 per term
As previously communicated, a pilot is currently taking place with a selection of providers in the summer term 2025. Providers who opted for monthly payments when completing their Early Years Funded Entitlement Provider Declaration form in March 2025 can expect to begin receiving payments monthly from September 2025 onwards. For more information on payments methods and dates, please see our How providers receive funding payments web page.
We are aware there are many providers currently reviewing their policies and invoices following the changes to the statutory guidance which were published in February 2025. We understand a particular focus for settings is the changes relating to invoicing and itemisation of charges that are required by January 2026.
We have a number of resources available to help you, including:
- a checklist which may aid you in ensuring you are compliant with the Provider Declaration, the checklist indicates which clauses in the Provider Declaration each point relates to
- an example invoice can be found in Appendix K of the Provider Declaration. We also have template invoices available in Word and Excel formats
- a template funding policy. You can choose to use this for reference, adapt the whole document for your own purposes, or borrow sections to enhance your existing policies
- you can also request targeted support
Existing EYFE providers need to re-sign up to offer EYFE in the following circumstances.
The ownership of a setting has changed. This includes:
- if the setting is bought or sold to new owners
- the registered person changes
- the premises which the setting operates from changes
- the setting organisation changes, for example committee-run to business-run
Changing your pattern of delivery. This could include:
- adding a stretched or self-stretched offer
- changing from stretched to self-stretched
- adding a term time only offer
Adding or removing an age group from your offer. For example, if you do not currently offer EYFE for 9 month olds but would like to do so, you will need to re-sign up.
Our Apply to offer Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) web page contains information on what you will need to do should any of the above apply. If you are an existing provider who would like to change their offer you must submit your application and accompanying documents at least six weeks before the beginning of the term you would like the changes to apply from. If you would like to change your offer for autumn term 2025, the deadline to re-sign up is Friday 18 July 2025. Please note, that approval of your application will be conditional on any actions identified during the review of your policies being actioned and evidence provided.
Providers who are changing ownership should contact us as soon as this is confirmed to avoid any delays to funding payments.
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
- 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
- name/address of the setting you are sharing funding with
- 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.
If you need support with an EYFE for Working Families eligibility code which you have checked using the Working Families eligibility checker, please use our new Working Family eligibility code support form.
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We’re committed to providing excellent support to all providers we engage with. Please take a moment to complete our Early Years and Childcare Provider Feedback Survey and let us know about your experiences. Your feedback will help us improve our service and better support settings like yours. You can visit the web page or scan the QR code. |
Early Years and Childcare newsletter web page.
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