Early years funding updates

  • Forecast request for summer funding period

    Group based providers / academies (not Devon maintained schools):

    For Summer funding we will be calculating a forecast based on 150% of spring headcount to take into account the increase in the number of funded children from April and to ensure that providers are not financially disadvantaged during this transition period. Please refer to the “Total” amount on page 1 of your Financial Breakdown Report, issued on 7th March 2024 via the Provider Portal for the amount of your spring headcount.

    If you expect your funding for summer to be significantly higher / lower than our proposed forecast and cannot wait until the normal headcount payment, you can ask for this to be recalculated. To do so, please fully complete and submit our new online form with the estimated number of hours for 2-year-old funding (this will be for both targeted and the working entitlement which comes into effect from 1st April) and 3- & 4-year-old funding for all children. If you don’t have any children in a particular age group, please enter ‘0’ hours.

    Childminders and out of school provision:

    Please fully complete and submit our new online form with the estimated number of hours for 2 year old funding (this will be for both targeted and the working entitlement which comes into effect from 1st April) and 3 & 4 year old funding for all children. If you don’t have any children in a particular age group, please enter ‘0’ hours.

    Please note that your estimated hours for Summer are for the period from 1st April 2024 – 31st August 2024.

    The deadline for submissions has been extended to Tuesday 26th March 2024.  Please note that we cannot guarantee processing of any amendments or requests received after this date. 

  • Completing your Amendment Task

    For those that were not able to attend our briefing sessions, please refer to the Powerpoint slides for information.

  • Disability Access Funding applications for spring term

    If you have any funded 3- & 4-year-olds in Spring that are in receipt of Disability Living Allowance and entitled to Disability Access Funding (DAF), applications and evidence need to be submitted on the Provider Portal by Tuesday 26th March 2024.

    Applications received after this date will not be processed in time for Spring payments and will be processed in the Summer funding period.

    Please visit the Disability Access Funding page for further information.

  • Amendment Task Deadline 23:59 1st April 2024

    The helpdesk will close at 4pm on Thursday 28th March and reopen at 9.00am on Tuesday 2nd April 2024.

    We recommend that you complete your Amendment Task as soon as possible so that if you have any queries, we are available to assist. Can we please ask that emails are checked regularly over the Easter holidays in case we have any data queries / overclaims to resolve.

    It is important that we process data and payments promptly so that we can work on the 570 report for the Summer funding period.

  • Planning for summer term

    Summer eligible children

    Newly eligible children will be entitled to a pro-rata amount of hours for the Summer funding period.  A Universal 3 & 4 year old or a 2 year old funded child (targeted or working entitlement) will have a maximum  of 237.5 hours available (570 annual entitlement / 12 months x 5 months).

    A Working Entitlement 3 & 4 year old, will have a maximum  of 475 hours available (1140 annual entitlement / 12 months x 5 months).

    Providers can allocate these over the weeks they are open as long as they do not exceed 15/30 hours a week or 10 hours in any day.

    570 report

    Each year we produce a 570 report that lists children that have claimed funding at your setting to advise the total hours claimed in Autumn and Spring, and what hours are remaining for the Summer funding period.

    This report cannot be produced until all Spring Term Amendment data and payments are processed. We hope that it will be available for Headcount week in May.

    Alternatively, for children that have only attended your setting you can download your Headcount Tasks and check what termly hours have been claimed and calculate the balance remaining.  For shared children, you will need to know the hours claimed with the other provider to calculate accurately.

    Summer funding period – 1st April – 31st August

    Adjustments will need to be made for the Summer Funding period for any bank holiday dates where the setting is closed, and the hours are not being offered elsewhere.

    Headcount week

    Summer Headcount week is 5th – 11th May. This does include the bank holiday Monday on 6th May but your weekly claims for the Headcount Task will assume that this was a normal full week. Please record the weekly hours as those that would usually be attended and deduct the bank holiday hours from your funding for term totals if those hours are not taken elsewhere.

    Summer headcount Task Deadline is 23.59 on Sunday 19th May 2024.

  • Individual Inclusion Funding

    If you have a child in receipt of Individual Inclusion funding, you will need to complete a termly Review of Impact Form to be held at the setting.  This maybe requested for quality and monitoring purposes. 

    Payments for Individual Inclusion funding are included in the  termly funding claims.  The funding amounts  for each child are shown on your Financial Breakdown report and this will include any  Individual Inclusion funding, if applicable.  If funding is not shown on the Spring Headcount Financial Breakdown report, please email the helpdesk so that it can be resolved. 

    If a child is moving providers in the Summer Term, please email the eyef@devon.gov.uk mailbox with the details of the child, level of funding, leaving date and the details of the new provider if known. 

    The deadline for new applications for Autumn funding is 31st May 2024. 

    You will need to advise us if any children are of school age but are deferring or delaying their school start date in September so we can ensure funding continues to be available in their Early Years setting.  

  • Registered email address for funding purposes

    If you change your email address, and this is also used for funding purposes i.e. provider portal, remittance etc. please email eyef@devon.gov.uk to advise and ask for this to be updated. If we have an incorrect email address you won’t receive conflict, audit emails, you may be missing out on important information regarding funding, and it will cause problems if you need to reset your provider portal password. 

    You may also need to register a new egress account for the new email in order to share sensitive and confidential information with us. Please visit Egress support for more information 

    Please could we also ask that funding information is shared with other staff/colleagues where relevant and appropriate.

  • Polylino EAL Resources

    The Early Years and Childcare service has a number of licences available for Polylino resources. 

    Polylino is a multilingual digital picture book service for early years providers. It provides nursery practitioners and managers with a multilingual digital library aligned with the EYFS  curriculum which can be used to support language and literacy development in the nursery and at home.  

    More information is available on YouTube or by visiting the website. 

    If this is something that would support EAL children in your setting, please sign up for the free trail on the Polylino website and if you would like to apply for licences, please complete the Polylino EAL resources for early years children application form