Early Years ONE Devon approach and the Early Years Entitlement Funding

Early Years ONE Devon is the approach that Devon County Council’s Early Years and Childcare Service use to support the effectiveness of early years and childcare providers.

The Council must follow the statutory guidance which ‘reflects the Government’s intention that, as far as possible, free places are delivered by providers who have achieved an overall rating of ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ in their most recent Ofsted inspection report.’ Section A3: Quality p17.

Early Years Entitlement Funding

Up until now our approach in Devon was to suspend funding for new children coming into settings if providers were judged to be less than ‘good’ by Ofsted or ‘not met’ by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI). This included inadequate, requires improvement, not met – with actions, and not met – with enforcement action. This suspension remained in place until an improved outcome of ‘good’, ‘met’ or above was given by Ofsted or the ISI.

We found that this process was having a detrimental impact on the financial sustainability of some providers and so a review was undertaken, and the following changes have been made.

The Revised Early Years ONE Devon Approach

All providers judged ‘requires improvement’, ‘not met’ or ‘inadequate’ will be part of the Early Years ONE Devon process. The Early Years Entitlement funding will not be automatically suspended if providers work with us to make the necessary changes that were identified by inspectors.

Further information on the process and the support available from the Early Years Team can be found  on Early Years ONE Devon – Support for schools and settings