Extended Entitlement (30 Hours Funded Childcare)
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Background
Some working parents of 3 and 4-year-olds are entitled to up to 1,140 hours of funded early years provision across the year (30 hours per week term time). The Childcare Act 2016 gives more information about this.
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Who is eligible?
The extended entitlement was introduced to support working parents with the cost of childcare and to help parents who would like to work more hours. Details of the eligibility criteria can be found here
The government’s website Childcare Choices gives information about all current and upcoming childcare offers and support available to parents.
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How is eligibility of parents checked?
- Parents will check their eligibility on the government’s Childcare Service website.
- Eligible parents will be given a unique 11 digit code which they will pass onto their childcare provider. Childcare providers can use the Extended Entitlement Funding Declaration Form Template to collect the relevant information.
- Providers will need to validate the code through the Provider Portal. Please see the Extended Entitlement (30 hours) – Eligibility Code Checking Guide.
- Providers will claim the funding from Devon County Council in the same way you do now by entering the additional hours onto the provider portal.
Devon County Council must validate the child’s code, checking that the parent is still eligible before you will be paid.
This will be done at six points during the year (see table below) and you will receive a report to indicate each child’s eligibility.
If a parent becomes ineligible, there will be a ‘grace period’ in which you will continue to receive funding for a newly ineligible child until the end of the relevant funding period.
Date at which parent becomes ineligible Devon County Council Eligibility Checking Date Grace period ends 1 January – 10 February 11 February 31 March (end of spring term) 11 February – 31 March 1 April 31 August (end of summer term) 1 April – 26 May 27 May 31 August (end of summer term) 27 May – 31 August 1 September 31 December (end of autumn term) 1 September – 21 October 22 October 31 December (end of autumn term) 22 October – 31 December 1 January 31 March (end of spring term) If the child is no longer eligible for the extended entitlement and the grace period has ended you can continue to claim the 570 hours universal entitlement for that child.
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Is your business ready?
Childcare Works is a government-appointed organisation working on the implementation of the extended entitlement. They have produced useful tools and guides to help you get your business ready:
Step one: Survey parents
The Early Years and Childcare Service have designed a template questionnaire for you to use to survey parents on their eligibility to the extended entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds and their plans to use it. This is important to help you to plan your services for September 2017.
Step two: Offering the extended entitlement yourself
When planning how to incorporate the extended entitlement in your business, please consider what you can offer parents. If you can provide the additional hours yourself, the following examples could be used:
- 1,140 stretched hours a year
- 30 hours over 38 weeks (term time)
- 24 hours stretched over 47.5 weeks
- 22.35 hours stretched over 51 weeks
For ideas on how to offer the extended entitlement, please see Examples of Funding Models for the extended entitlement.
We anticipate an increase in demand for all-year provision and as such, the examples above are not a definitive list; you may have other models that better suit your business needs.
Step three: Working in partnership with other providers
If you are unable to offer some or all of the extended entitlement, you should investigate working in partnership with other providers to do so. This can be called a blended offer. The 30 hours mixed model partnership toolkit provides more information about this. The toolkit also gives examples of several blended models between various childcare providers.
