The Department of Children and Youth Affairs implements a number of childcare support programmes including a free pre-school year under the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme and the Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) programmes.
My Department and Pobal are continuing the process of implementing the new Programmes Implementation Platform (PIP), which will help streamline the payment process for all of the childcare support programmes. This new development which will provide a more comprehensive, integrated set of management processes, more efficient work practices, greater visibility and control of funds and commitments will substantially improve the capacity of the Department and services on the ground to dynamically manage service by service and case by case approvals and changes in each of the programmes. The new system will also reduce paperwork and duplication, simplify administration and enable the support programmes to be managed more efficiently and effectively.
The child registration element of the PIP system has now been fully launched and will provide for the efficient registration of children enrolling for the childcare programmes for the 2015/16 school year. Following the introduction of the new system in the 2014/15 school year, some initial difficulties were experienced which resulted in some delays in confirming approval for childcare places. However, every effort was made to ensure that service providers participating in the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme received sufficient ‘preliminary funding’ to maintain their service while waiting on confirmation of payment levels.
The CCS programme provides funding to community childcare services to enable them to provide quality childcare
at reduced rates to disadvantaged and low income working parents. Parents, whose children are enrolled in a participating childcare service during a designated week in October each year, can apply for subvention support under the programme. Eligibility is confirmed following verification of the details by the Department of Social Protection (DSP) and/or Health Service Executive (HSE).
In previous years, CCS service providers received preliminary payments for the period September to January. In January, funding approval levels were confirmed and balancing payments issued. This year, due to technical difficulties experienced during the initial launch of the PIP system, service providers did not receive the approvals confirmation until the end of February 2015. To ensure that service providers received sufficient funding to maintain their services while waiting on confirmation of funding levels and balancing payments, a further preliminary payment issued to provide for the period to the end of March 2015. This payment was based on a percentage of each CCS service’s approved funding for the 2013/14 year.
CCS service providers that reported an increase in the number of children eligible for subvention in their service, compared to the previous year's numbers, were given the opportunity to apply for additional provisional funding. Those services that contacted my Department with specific difficulties were supported.
I am pleased to inform the Deputy that a balancing payment was made to services in March 2015 which represents the funding levels approved following verification of application details.
