Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
ECCE Scheme new entrant information
Dublin City Childcare Committee would like to bring your attention to an important change in the ECCE scheme. All new entrants coming to your service mid-year to join the ECCE scheme will be paid from when they join (the funding will be backdated in the childcare services next payment) e.g. if a child begins in a service on the 17th of October 2011, the childcare service will receive a payment for that child in January 2012, which will be backdated to the 17th of October 2011.
This is an amendment to the information that was issued in the ECCE timeline that services received with their ECCE pack, which said that where a child entered the scheme as a new entrant after the 30th of September, payment would only be made from the beginning of the following term, and would NOT be backdated.
All New Entrant applications should be marked for the attention of Ann Tarpey in the Childcare Directorate.
This new information does not apply to transfers. If a child transfers during a term, the new service will only receive the capitation from the beginning of the next term.
A child my also increase their level of service, (e.g., from 3 to 5 days) during a term. ECCE form 6 should be used for an increase in level of service.
If you require any further clarification on this, please do not hesitate to contact Dublin City Childcare Committee or one of our 5 local resource services.
ECCE Scheme Settling In Period Information
Following a number of queries received over the last week, the following should be noted:
At the beginning of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) pre-school year, allowance is made for the fact that children may not settle in a particular service and need to be moved to another, and the payment arrangements for this early period are as follows:
Where a child had been moved from one service to another by the time the electronic returns of ECCE applicant children were submitted by the provider, that child will have been included in the returns of the second service, and the second service will receive payment for that child for the full term.
Where the child was included in the electronic return for the first service, but subsequently moved to a second service, the rules governing the ECCE programme would normally require the completion of an ECCE Transfer form by both services and the parent, and the first service would receive payment in respect of that child for the whole of the first term, with the second service not being paid for the child until the commencement of the following term. However, during the “settling-in” period such cases are being dealt with as follows: the first service will receive payment for the child in respect of the four weeks up to Friday 23rd September, with the capitation fee transferring to the second service from Monday 26th September. In order to avail of these arrangements, an ECCE Form 1 (New Entrant) form must be completed by the second service and returned to Childcare Directorate by Friday 30th September. PLEASE MARK THE FORM “SETTLING-IN TRANSFER”.
THE SETTLING-IN PERIOD IS NOW OVER.
Where a child has been mistakenly included in the electronic returns of both services, NO PAYMENT will be made until it has been determined which service is the one the child has moved to.
NORMAL TRANSFER ARRANGEMENTS
Where a child is moved from one service to another after 23rd September 2011, the usual transfer rules will apply, i.e. an ECCE Form 2 (Transfer form) must be completed by both services and the parent. The first service will receive payment in respect of the child up to the end of the term in which the child transfers out, and the second service will receive payment from the beginning of the term following the date on which the child transferred. PARENTS SHOULD, THEREFORE, be aware that if a child is moved from one service to another in the middle of a term, they will have to pay the second service for that child until the beginning of the following term when the capitation fee is transferred.
Pre-School Terms 2011/2012
Term 1. September – December 2011
Term 2. January - March 2012
Term 3. April - June 2012
Term 4. July – August 2012 (daycare services)
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ECCE Higher Capitation Rate
Dublin City Childcare Committee recently received a clarification from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) regarding the higher capitation rate under the ECCE scheme which may be of interest to your service.
While the position regarding the higher capitation rate is relatively straightforward in the case of services which are purely Sessional, the position can be less clear where providers operate full daycare services as well as sessional ones.
This is because of the sanction provided to DCYA by the Department of Finance, which states that the higher capitation rate is not applicable to full daycare places.
The following points confirm the circumstances in which the higher capitation rate can be paid to services which offer a variety of childcare & pre-school options, and the conditions which must be met.
1. A purely Sessional service has the required higher qualified staff and provides a high quality pre-school programme of 3 hours duration, 5 days per week for 38 weeks per annum, for no charge to parents. (Charges can be made for extra services which are offered on a purely optional basis.)
2. Where a Sessional service is located within a full daycare facility but is in a separate setting / room and is a bona fide sessional service, i.e. all enrolments are on the basis of attendance free of charge for 3 hours per day and there is no requirement for longer hours or additional charges.
3. Children attending such a Sessional service, as described in 2. above, may also avail of a ‘wrap around’ service in the same facility (i.e.additional hours of childcare provision, before and/or after the ECCE session), provided this is offered to parents on a purely optional basis and is not a condition (real or implied) of enrolment in the sessional service.
4. In addition in the case of 3. above, the provider must be able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Department of Children & Youth Affairs, that the parent of a child staying longer than the 3 hours of ECCE gains the full benefit of the capitation rate in such circumstances, e.g. if a full daycare place for a non ECCE 3 year old is €170 p.w., then the cost of the additional ‘wrap around’ service to the parent of an ECCE 3 year old must be €95 p.w.
Please note that in all cases, the higher qualified staff attracting the higher capitation rate must work directly with the children at all times during the ECCE sessions, and not, for example, be engaged in management duties when those sessions are running, and this criterion will be strictly enforced. If this rule is not observed, services are in breach of their contractual obligations, and risk losing the higher capitation rate.