Free Early Education Entitlement Agreement 2024-2027

Description

The local authority has a statutory responsibility to have sufficient childcare places in the borough and to pay 95% of the EY block of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) to childcare settings (Childminders, Day Nurseries, Pre-Schools, School Nurseries, Childminding Agencies). The DFE guidance says that childcare providers with a “Good”, “Outstanding” or “Not Inspected” Payments for delivery of free early education and childcare places to providers will be for Under 2's, 2, 3&4 year old. The guidance is obtained from the links below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2 All providers who are interested in providing the free early education places in Waltham Forest go through a FEEE compliance check process https://thehub-beta.walthamforest.gov.uk/commissionedtodeliverFEEE. Once approved as a FEEE provider, an agreement is issued to the provider and these agreements lasts for 3years or less, depending on the time contract has been issued. Agreements have been prepared by the legal team for the Early Years team and these contracts are issued by the Early Years team to the providers and signed by legal team. Copies of signed agreements are held by Legal team and saved on the Early Years O'drive. Once an agreement has been signed by any new provider, providers are then set up on the payment system (Oracle) to make monthly payment through windhsuttle Non procurement process on Oracle by the finance team. All existing providers are already set up on Oracle to be paid monthly. These agreements have been ongoing since April 2015 and renewed every 3years. The Contract value can vary according to each childcare provider from £20,000 to £1,000,000 within the 3years period and are paid at an hourly rate which is published on the hub via the link https://thehub-beta.walthamforest.gov.uk/early-years-financial-guidance on a monthly basis. This is the agreement for the period 1st September 2024 - 31st March 2027 with a possibility of 3-6months extension if needed at the end of contract.