Early years funding updates

To try and co-ordinate important messages we are including funding updates on this webpage. This will include everything that is current. We recommend that you ‘bookmark’ or save this webpage as a ‘favourite’ so you can easily refer to it.

  • Summer amendment task guidance

    The summer amendment task is now available with a deadline of 23.59 on Sunday 31st August 2025.

    The amendment task allows providers to update the claim that was made at headcount for children that join or leave your setting or who increase or decrease their funded hours.

    We will also be issuing an updated 570 report with any hours that are still remaining for children in the summer funding period. Please ensure that you refer to the report before you make any changes to funded hours. If hours exceed those listed on the 570 report your claim will automatically be reduced and will incur an administrative charge.

    Please refer to the guidance below on to how to complete/amend your under 2s, 2-year-old and 3- & 4-year-old tasks.

    There is also a copy of our presentation from the recent training sessions available on our webpages. Please refer to the section entitled ‘Online support/training sessions and videos’.

    Please note that you must submit all amendment tasks, even if you do not have any funded children or have any changes to make. This is a condition of funding as per our provider agreement.

    Adding new children for Autumn Term 2025:

    • Please add children who will be newly eligible for funding in autumn term to the relevant task i.e. a child who will be claiming 3- & 4-year-old funding in September will need to be added to your 2-year-old summer amendment task.
    • Please do not add any hours that are required for autumn as this is the summer amendment task for hours delivered between 1st April and 31st Any hours from 1st September onwards will need to be added to the autumn headcount task when it is issued in September.
    • Please check the dates of working entitlement codes to confirm eligibility.

    Adding new children that have joined the setting, or that were missed at summer headcount:

    • You must see evidence of eligibility for ‘targeted’ 2-year-old funding to be able to claim funding. The evidence will contain a ‘TYF878’ reference and the ‘earliest date to take up the funded place’. We recommend that you keep a copy on file in case of any query.
    • There must be a ‘WE’ icon in the funding column to allow hours to be entered into the working entitlement fields.
    • If there is no ‘WE’ icon, please ensure that you have run a check on the code, that the child is entitled to the funding for summer, as per their eligibility dates, and the details i.e. name/date of birth used to run the code check match the task. You may need to add the working entitlement code to the child’s record on the task by clicking on the ‘edit child details’ button to the left of their name. If there has been a change to their working entitlement code, please check that the correct code i.e. the code that is valid for summer, is showing in the relevant field on the child’s record on the amendment task.
    • If the child has moved from, or is sharing hours with another setting, please contact the other provider and confirm their pattern of attendance, total hours claimed for summer and leaving date if appropriate including notice period (a maximum of 4 weeks notice on funded time). Please follow our Provider Process for children claiming Early Years Funding (amendment)
    • Please ensure that the correct start date is recorded as it will automatically default to 01/04/2025.

    If the child started with you after headcount week, please record ‘0’ in the weekly columns and add the hours claimed for the funding period as follows:

    • For under 2s, and 2-year-old funded children that are entitled to the working entitlement funding, you will need to enter your weekly hours/hours claimed for the funding period in the ‘Working Entitlement’ columns.
    • For 2-year-olds that are entitled to the ‘targeted’ 2-year-old funding, you will need to enter your weekly hours/hours claimed for the funding period in the ‘targeted/universal’ columns. Please note that if the child is eligible for both the working entitlement and targeted funding, hours should be recorded in the targeted columns only.
    • For 3- & 4-year-olds that are eligible for the ‘universal funding’ only, not the working entitlement (extended hours), please record the hours in the universal columns.
    • For 3- & 4-year-olds, who are also eligible for the ‘working entitlement’ please record hours in all 4 columns.
    • Weekly hours should be ‘0’ if the child started with you after headcount week, termly hours should be split 50/50 and half recorded in the ‘universal’ column and the other half in the ‘working entitlement’ column. For example, a child claiming 400 hours for the funding period, you would record 200 in both the ‘universal’ and ‘working entitlement’ hours for the funding period columns.
    • Your total hours for the funding period must be in multiples of 0.5 hours. If the child has a total of 242.5 hours for the funding period, you cannot record 121.25 in each column. Please record 121.5 in the universal column and 121 in the Working Entitlement column.

    Amending hours for existing children:

    IMPORTANT: Please do not change any hours on the task/s unless the child has increased or decreased their hour’s part way through the term. We may have apportioned the hours differently to our guidance for children who are eligible for EYPP.

    • Please do not amend any weekly hours unless you made an error on your headcount claim.
    • If you are amending your termly claim because a child has increased or decreased their weekly hours, please recalculate the total termly funding you require.
    • If the child is only eligible for the ‘targeted/universal’ funding or ‘Working Entitlement’ for 2 yr olds and under, please adjust total hours for funding period only.
    • If the child is a 3- or 4-year-old entitled to the working entitlement funding, please add, or deduct the hours equally from the ‘universal / working entitlement claimed for funding period’ columns and ensure the total of both columns equals the hours you require. If there is a deduction of 40.5 hours you will need to deduct 20.5 and 20 hours as you cannot record multiples of 0.25 in the total funded hours column.
    • If the child is a 3 or 4 year old who is eligible for EYPP, and entitled to both universal and working entitlement funding, please increase or decrease (as applicable) the hours from the ‘working entitlement claimed for funding period’ column first before you increase or decrease any hours in the ‘universal entitlement claimed for funding period’ column.
    • Add a leaving date if the child has left the setting. Please note that by adding a leaving date the system will not automatically reduce. the termly hours, this needs to be calculated manually and updated.
    • If there is a notice period, the end date will be the last day of the notice period. You must share this information if the child has moved to a new provider to ensure there is no overclaim. Any overclaim could result in a reduction.
    • If the child has increased or decreased their weekly hour’s part way through the funding period or had additional ad hoc hours (within their 15/30 hours per week), calculate the funding required and adjust the ‘targeted/universal and/or ‘working entitlement hours claimed in funding period’ columns.
    • Please keep your workings as they may be required if data is selected by audit.

    Please only collect and add parent/carer data for any children that you believe may be eligible for EYPP and who are not listed on a previous EYPP report.

    Please remember to save your changes at regular intervals and only submit the task/s once all the changes have been input. If there are any late changes you can resubmit up until the deadline.

    The deadline for submissions is 23.59 on Sunday 31st August 2025. Please can we ask that you complete and submit your tasks as soon as possible in case there are any queries.

  • 2 Year Old Funding

    We have received a number of enquiries from parents that have been turned away from a setting as they haven’t provided an 11-digit code for the two-year-old funding. Children can be awarded two-year-old funding as ‘targeted’ or ‘working entitlement.’

    If they are ‘targeted’ they will have a TYF878 number. You will need to see confirmation from the parent that they are entitled to this funding. This could be an email or portal message. The evidence will also show the earliest date that they can take up the funded place. You cannot run a check on a TYF878 code or enter it on to a task.

    If they are ‘working entitlement’ they will have an 11-digit code that start ‘50’, ‘11’ or in some cases ‘40’. You should run a check on the code through the provider portal in the usual way to confirm eligibility.

    If two-year-old funding has been awarded by another Local Authority, please direct the parent to the Citizen’s Portal (devon.cc/tyf) to make an application so they can get their TYF878 reference.

    We recommend that if a child joins you without the relevant eligibility/evidence that their contracts are issued as if they are a fee-paying child.

  • Early Years Expansion Grant (EYEG)

    For 2025/26 we have received a grant of £966,227 from the Department for Education (DfE) for the final phase of the roll-out of the working entitlements.  From September 2025, the working entitlements for eligible 2-year-olds and under will increase to up to 30 hours per week.

    Local authorities must distribute the funding in a clear and transparent manner and consider specific growth needs in their area to meet their sufficiency duty.

    Whilst the funding is calculated on uplifting the 2-year-old and under 2’s funding rate, due to provider feedback, we have decided to distribute an increase across all ages (£778K) and retain some funding (£188K) for revenue grants in areas where we know new development will be required in 2025.  Due to more 3- & 4-year-olds accessing a higher number of funded hours, it does reduce the amount of increase we can allow on each of the funding rates.

    The increases in hourly rates from 1st April 2025 (summer funding period) is as follows:

    3- & 4-year-olds = 6p per hour

    2-year-olds = 4p per hour

    Under 2’s  = 4p per hour

    Therefore, the new hourly rates from 1st April 2025 will be:

    3- & 4-year-olds = £5.56

    2-year-olds = £7.46

    Under 2’s = £9.96

    All hourly rates above include 10p for universal SEND and 4p for universal Deprivation.

    The increased hourly rates will be used to calculate the funding due for summer once the summer headcount tasks have been submitted. This will be shown on the financial breakdown report that will be issued via the provider portal once the balancing headcount payment is made at the end of June.  Please note that we will not be amending monthly forecast payments.

    This is a one-year grant so these increases will be removed from the funding rates from April 2026 and the normal DfE increases will be allocated once known.

    If you are looking at a further development for 2-year-olds or under in an area of need, please speak with your EYCA so we can advise on the grant availability.

    Please ensure this communication is shared with the business owners, directors, finance colleagues and anyone else who needs to be aware.

  • Updated Statutory Guidance re: Charges

    Further to our email sent on Friday 28th March, we have made some amendments to our existing provider agreement with regards to charges and notice periods. The changes are as follows:

    Section 4: Charging parents – opening statement added

    Section 4: Charging parents – Notice periods 4.21 amended

    Section 4: Charging parents – Notice period original 4.21 now 4.22

    Section 10: Termination and withdrawal of funding – Ofsted/ISI outcomes 10.6 amended

     Any reference to consumables, service charges or additional charges are now referred to as ‘chargeable extras’.

    We will continue to make amendments/updates to the provider agreement as and when required.

    Following the release of the Statutory Guidance and our briefing sessions, we have some FAQ’s from both the DfE and from our Devon providers which we hope you will find useful.  We can’t cover every different scenario but hope it sets the options available to you if you are thinking about making changes to your model and/or your additional charges.

    DfE Charging – FAQs

    Provider FAQs for Chargeable Extras

    The DfE have advised that they will not be encouraging parents to opt-out of charges and we are not planning on publicising the changes to parents but you must continue to have options available.  Likewise, you do not need to highlight alternative options to parents and can simply say that you have reviewed your charging policies and have made changes to meet the Statutory Guidance requirements and if parents have any queries, to contact you to discuss.  The DFE are requesting that Chargeable Extra’s, are listed as hours, food, consumables and activities.  The DfE have a template that can be used to agree with parents the services they require and the charges.  To support providers we have drafted a template policy that can be used to set-out your offer along with other charges that may apply to funded or non-funded time.

    It is not a requirement that you use these templates but it is a requirement that all settings are open and transparent with your charges.  Your fees and charges should be published on your websites or social media pages.  We are looking at the Provider Self Update to see if the information can be held centrally and will update you further with our progress.

    Template – DfE Chargeable Extras

    Template – Devon Policy for Chargeable Extras

    Chargeable Extras and itemised invoicing need to be fully implemented by January 2026.  LA’s can exempt providers caring for 10 or fewer children but being transparent applies to all settings.  Pupil numbers fluctuate through the year, and we want to be consistent with all sectors. This is therefore a requirement of all funded providers in Devon.

    We know providers are being asked for detailed invoices for parents who are claiming childcare through their Universal Credit claims so if you have your own invoicing systems, you may want to make changes sooner.  If you are using software packages, it will take time for them to be updated.

    If you have an example of an invoice that has been queried by DWP for a Universal Credit claim and parents are happy for you to share their details, please email copy of invoice and any communications so that we can follow this up with our DWP contact.

    If you have any specific topics that you would like us to cover, please let us know and we will do our best to plan an appropriate session.

  • Online support/training sessions and videos

    Autumn Headcount Task – Virtual training sessions

    Session dates and times will be advertised here once confirmed.

    Training videos

    We have also produced some training videos to help with the completion of tasks:

    More videos will be added as they become available.

    Presentations

  • Review of impact for Individual Inclusion Funding

    To ensure Individual Inclusion Funding (IIF) is allocated and meeting the needs of children across Devon, we have changed the way we collect information about the progress and outcomes of children with SEND.

    Further to our previous correspondence, the termly Review of Impact (RoI) for children in receipt of IIF needs to be completed online on the link below:

    Individual Inclusion Funding Termly review of impact

    The deadline for completion is 28th February 2025 for all children that have been allocated IIF from Autumn 2024 or before. This will ensure that we have funding available and allocated for the Summer 2025 term.

    As a new process, we would like the RoI to be completed, even if funding is not required in Summer so that we have a record of the child’s progress.

    For children who are newly funded in Spring with IIF your first RoI is due for completion by 31st May 2025.

    The RoI will be monitored by our Early Years Consultant colleagues who may contact you if they have any queries.

  • 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 trial 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

 


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