Dear Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare providers
Terms and Conditions
For the 93% of providers who have signed up for the Transition Fund, many thanks for doing so and for agreeing to comply with the Terms and Conditions set out, as follows:
- The Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service will be open to provide services for children for one or more weeks between 2nd May and 31st August inclusive as indicated on the application form.
- The Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service is contracted to provide one or more of the DCEDIY funding programmes (ECCE, NCS, CCSP and/or TEC) and has at least one registered child in the week ending 4th February 2022;
- The Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service will not impose any increases to the Registered Fees List that was in place on 30th September 2021, for the period 1st May to 31st August 2022 regardless of whether or not children are receiving a subsidy under any of the DCEDIY funding programmes.
- The Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service intends to continue to operate in September 2022.
The Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service shall permit representatives and agents of the DCEDIY to attend and access the premises of the Early Learning and Care and/or School Age Childcare service for the purposes of verification of compliance with the Terms and Conditions of this agreement and shall facilitate access to relevant records for this purpose.
Please be advised that, in the event of non-compliance with any of the Terms and Conditions, DCEDIY reserve the right to suspend or recoup funding under this agreement and/or to terminate the agreement. Documentation and evidence of compliance with the Terms and Conditions must be available upon request.
Calculation of Transition Fund value
Please also note that there was a miscalculation of some of the individual allocations provided to applicants for the Transition Fund, which used overall average fee rates, per session type, per county. The fee rates for the calculation of the value of Transition Fund per service should have further distinguished between whether the service is a community or private services. Services’ Transition Fund value is based on a percentage of the average overall fee rate (by session type, by county), or the average fee rate within community or private services (by session type, by county), whichever is the higher.
While the differences are generally quite small, acting in good faith to address this issue we will increase the Transition Fund value for all providers who should have been paid a higher rate. This correction will be in effect for the entire period of the Transition Fund, with payments backdated to the point of application. The correction will take place automatically, no action is required by providers to update their value.
Amended funding allocations can be viewed in the programme funding section on Hive by selecting Transition Fund and using the dropdown menu to select view allocations. This will give you a list of your approved weekly Transition Fund allocations.
The Transition Fund will make a payment to providers for the time they are open between 2nd May and 31st August. Providers who have not signed up, may wish to review their Transition Fund value, which may have increased, and re-consider availing of the funding. The funding will be available from the point of application.
A link to the fees lists used is available here.
Publication of Transition Fund participants
The Department has published a list of all services/providers who have signed-up to the Transition Fund scheme. The list will be updated regularly and is publicly available here.
The list was published so that parents in particular, as well as other interested parties, could know which services are participating in the scheme and operating the fee control.
The Transition Fund list was first published on 13 May and contained service names, organisation addresses (first line) and counties. Service addresses (the location in which the ELC/SAC service operates) were deemed more suitable information in order to identify which services were participating. The first list was therefore replaced by one that contained service names, service addresses (first line) and counties. The list that is currently live contains service names and counties only.
The Department will re-publish a list containing service names, service addresses (first line) and counties on the 20th of June. This list will contain all of the services that are participating in the Transition Fund as of that date and will be publicly available here.
The Department will also be updating its Privacy Statements, to reflect that certain personal data related to services may be published in association with scheme participation attracting public funding.
No further action is required, however if you have any queries, please create a Service Request on your HIVE portal using the follow details:
Programme: Transition Fund
Request type: Funding
Request Type Details: Payment Query
For all other queries or for guidance and support in understanding the impacts and benefits of the Transition Fund for your service, please contact your local City/County Childcare Committees (CCCs).
Kind regards
Early Years Team
Pobal