The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman, published the ‘Partner Service Funding Agreement’ for the new €221m Core Funding for Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) providers that will commence this September.
Services that sign up for Core Funding will become Partner Services, working with the State to deliver ELC and SAC for the public good – focused on quality and affordability for children and their families, sustainability and stability for providers and their staff, and accountability, transparency and value for money for the State.
The Funding Agreement, published today, sets out the detail of how Core Funding will operate in its first year, the commitment from the Minister to funding and the associated requirements of Partner Services, which include:
- Ensuring no increase to fees in 2022/23 above September 2021 rates.
- Issuing a Parent Statement to all parents using the service outlining what they can expect.
- Offering the NCS and the ECCE programme to all eligible children.
- Implementing the national practice frameworks, Aistear and Siolta.
- Developing implementing and reporting on a quality action plan.
- Providing transparent and validated financial reports.
- Participating in annual data collection surveys.
Giving further detail on the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement 2022/2023, the Minister stated, “Core Funding represents a new approach to how the State funds the sector. It entails a shift in the relationship between how State and providers collectively work together, with new responsibilities on both sides, to progressively deliver the vision of increasingly publicly funded and publicly managed early learning and care and school-age childcare to the benefit of children and their families.”
Core Funding for an individual service will be calculated based on the number of places a service offers, the age group of children for whom the places are offered and the hours of operation with additional funding for qualified graduates in certain leadership roles.
The application process for Core Funding will open in late July. In the meantime, a Core Funding Ready Reckoner online tool is available to give providers an estimate of what they can expect to receive under Core Funding. In addition, services can also book an appointment with their local City/County Childcare Committee to calculate their Core Funding value at individual service level.
Core Funding only comes into effect and is contingent upon Employment Regulation Orders being in effect to cover all roles across the sector as defined in the Early Years’ Service Joint Labour Committee Establishment Order.