Newsletter for Early Years Funding providers in West Sussex
Monday 8 September 2025
This term's newsletter includes:
- Autumn term 2025 actuals claims - action required
- Guidance for submitting actuals
- Launch of monthly payments
- Maximum hours per week for each type of funded entitlement
- New feature: checking Local Authority Issued Early Years Funded Entitlement eligibility
- Parent declaration forms
- Early Years Pupil Premium
- Claiming Disability Access Fund
- Guidance on optional consumables charges
- Applying to amend your Early Years Funded Entitlement offer
- Help us to answer your queries more efficiently
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In #newsletter 35/2025, we confirmed 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 age groups.
To support your claim, please see our 'information to consider when submitting autumn 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 Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page.
As a reminder, please see the key dates below:
- Headcount day: Thursday 18 September 2025
- Deadline for submissions: Friday 26 September 2025 at 11.59pm
We have updated our guidance documents to include instructions on how to claim for up to 30 hours for 9 months plus and 2 year olds, and how to use the new Local Authority Issued eligibility check. We have split the guidance into 4 separate sections, which we hope will make following the guidance easier and finding the relevant instructions quicker for providers. You can find the updated guidance on our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page.
Starting in the autumn term, providers who selected monthly payments on their Provider Declaration form in the spring term will begin receiving payments each month.
A confirmation email was sent to these providers on 5 August 2025.
For providers who opted for monthly payments, the first September payment should already have been released by the time this newsletter is published. You can view a breakdown of paid and due payments on your 'Summary' tab on the Online Provider Portal. For more information on payment methods and dates, please see our how providers receive funding payments web page.
The autumn term 2025 is the final phase of the Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) expansion. Eligible children aged from 9 months to 2 years old can now get up to 30 hours of EYFE for Working Families each week.
Please see below the new total funded hours per week which can be claimed with each entitlement:
- 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE- available to all 3 and 4 year olds - up to 15 hours per week based on term time only.
- 2 Year Old Local Authority (LA) Issued EYFE - available to eligible 2 year olds only - up to 15 hours per week based on term time only.
- 3 and 4 year olds with EYFE for Working Families - up to an additional 15 hours per week Extended EYFE, totalling up to 30 hours per week based on term time only.
- 9 months plus and 2 year old children with EYFE for Working Families - up to 30 hours per week based on term time only.
- 2 year olds with both LA Issued EYFE and EYFE for Working Families - up to 15 hours per week of LA Issued EYFE, with up to 15 additional hours of EYFE for Working Families, totalling up to 30 hours per week based on term time only.
There has been no change to the amount of hours that can be claimed for 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE and 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE. The number of funded hours is still limited to 15 per week for these types of funding.
Children aged from 9 months to 2 year olds, who are not approved for EYFE for Working Families or 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE, will not be able to access any funded hours. They must be approved for one of these types of funding or reach the age eligibility for 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE to access funded childcare.
There is now an option to check eligibility for 2 Year Old Local Authority (LA) Issued Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) under economic criteria when submitting actuals for 2 year olds on the Online Provider Portal.
You should only check eligibility for 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE if all 3 of the below apply:
- The parent does not have evidence that the child is already approved for LA Issued EYFE.
- You are submitting actuals for the child due to them being approved for EYFE for Working Families. Please do not attempt to check eligibility for 2 year olds who have not been approved for any EYFE. You should instead signpost potentially eligible families to westsussex.gov.uk/fundedchildcare to apply.
- You have permission from the parent to check eligibility, which they can provide by completing the eligibility codes section in the parent declaration.
If a child is eligible, you must first submit the initial 15 hours (or the stretched equivalent) as LA Issued hours. After that, you can claim an extra 15 hours (or stretched equivalent) as Working Families hours, making a total of up to 30 hours. Please note, even if a child qualifies for both types of funding, they cannot receive more than 30 hours in total.
The advantages to carrying out this check are:
- unlike Working Families eligibility, LA Issued approval cannot be lost, and continues until the child is eligible for 3 and 4 year old Universal EYFE. This ensures there will always be up to 15 hours available to claim for this child, regardless of any changes to circumstances and loss of eligibility for EYFE for Working Families
- West Sussex County Council (WSCC) will send a 6 digit LA Issued eligibility code directly to the parent. To help us contact families about their approval, please include parent email addresses in the 'Parent/Carer Details' tab of your actuals
- the Department for Education has specified that all children eligible for LA Issued EYFE access this first before using their Working Families entitlement. With this checker now available, more children will be able to access LA Issued EYFE.
Please do not carry out an eligibility check if the parent can show proof that their child has already been approved for 2 Year Old LA Issued EYFE by WSCC or another local authority. This is because the check might come back as not eligible, which could wrongly suggest that LA Issued EYFE cannot be used.
If a child has already been approved, either by WSCC or another local authority, you can use LA Issued EYFE regardless of the results of an eligibility check. If you have seen proof of approval, you can submit LA Issued EYFE hours without running a check. This is different from EYFE for Working Families, which still requires you to check eligibility each time you make a claim.
Please remember, for the autumn term, new parent declaration forms should be completed in the following scenarios:
- for all children claiming 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 (18 September 2025).
Early Years Pupil Premium (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' consent box under the parent/carer details tab. For more support and useful help guides, visit our Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals web page. Our existing children and new children help guides will help you with these steps.
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
- 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. They will need to give you evidence to confirm this. Please check this evidence and once you are satisfied, you will need to submit this as part of your actuals claim. Please see our updated guidance for submitting actuals for more information.
The Disability Access Fund (DAF) helps children access early years places. It can support settings with things like making reasonable adjustments to their setting or building, either to support the individual child or to benefit all children at the setting. DAF is available to all age groups who claim Early Years Funded Entitlement, from 9 months plus to 3 and 4 year olds. If you wish to claim a DAF payment for a child this term, you will need to complete the DAF evidence form, and provide the following when completing the form:
- a copy of the letter confirming the child's current Disability Living Allowance award
- a copy of the child's parent declaration form (using the current September 2025 version, signed by the parents/carers and provider, no later than headcount day (18 September 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 will be declined, but you will be able to submit the correct paperwork the following term. If you send in the evidence by 18 September 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.
Providers can charge parents optional fees for certain consumables and extra activities when children are accessing Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) hours.
What can be charged for:
- consumable items used by the child, such as nappies or sun cream
- meals and snacks provided to the child
- optional extras like special events, celebrations, or additional classes (for example, music or language lessons) that are not part of the core Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework.
Important considerations:
- parents must have the choice to opt out of paying for these optional charges
- you should offer a reasonable alternative if a parent chooses not to pay, for example, allowing parents to provide their child’s lunch instead of charging for meals. These can be subject to a healthy eating and allergies policy
- if a child does not participate in a paid activity, they must be offered an alternative experience that provides similar opportunities
- when planning optional activities, ensure you have adequate staffing, space, and resources to maintain quality provision for all children throughout the session.
Charging across age groups
Although funding rates vary by age group, we would suggest that if you apply optional consumables charges, you do so at a lower rate consistently across all age groups. Charging only 3 and 4 year olds can be confusing for families, so a consistent approach helps make things clearer.
Appendix L of the provider declaration lists examples of items that may or may not be charged for and providers must ensure that any chargeable extras are not a condition of taking up a funded place. Please note that you may request voluntary contributions towards items listed as non chargeable, but these must not appear on invoices alongside EYFE hours.
If you need to re-sign up to offer Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for any of the following reasons:
- the ownership of the setting has changed. This includes new owners, changes to the registered person or premises, and changing from an organisation or 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.
You should read our apply to offer Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) web page and contact us to re-sign up by Wednesday 19 November 2025 for these changes to apply from spring 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 setting 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 EYFE for Working Families eligibility codes, which you have checked using the Working Families eligibility checker, please use our new Working Family eligibility code support form.
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