Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 September 2023
501. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of reports made of early years facilities in breach of the Core Funding Agreement for failing to pass on the benefit to employees; and the number of reports made of early years facilities in breach of the Core Funding Agreement for failing to comply with requirements on fees charged to parents. [41613/23]
View answerCore Funding is a payment to Partner Services designed to support quality, sustainability, and enhanced public management, with associated conditions in relation to fee control and cost transparency, incorporating funding for administration and to support improved pay and working conditions of staff and to support the employment of graduate staff.
The State is not the employer within the early learning and childcare sector and therefore does not set the pay and conditions for employees in early learning and childcare services. As such, the terms and conditions of Core Funding do not contain any rules on staff pay and conditions.
However, the Joint Labour Committee has established a formal mechanism by which employer and employee representatives can negotiate pay rates in this sector.
Last September, the first Employment Regulation Orders (EROs) for Early Years Services came into effect, providing minimum hourly rates of pay for different roles, including higher minimum rates for those in leadership roles and those with graduate qualifications, thus establishing a wage structure for staff.
This historic achievement is supported by Core Funding, which supports the ability of service providers to meet the additional costs resulting from the EROs, while also providing for a freeze on parental fees, and assisting services with financial sustainability. It is nevertheless entirely separate to Core Funding, and any potential breach of an Employment Regulation Order may be referred to the Workplace Relations Commission for appropriate action.
As a condition of receiving Core Funding, Partner Services must uphold their contractual obligations regarding their fees charged to parents/guardians as laid out in the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement. This includes agreement not to increase the fee for any Service Type which was extant on September 30th 2021 or introduce an extra charge for any component of an unchanged Service Type. An increased charge of any kind for an existing and unchanged Service Type will be in breach of Core Funding rules. This also includes circumstances by which a change of fee policy would result in increased charges to parents, for example, a service that offered a multiple child deduction cannot remove it.
The Core Funding fee management system aims to ensure that affordability measures are passed on to parents/guardians. Where a parent/guardian identifies a case of a potential breach of Core Funding fee rules, they can contact their local CCC and seek to have this examined and a conclusion reached through the Core Funding Fee Review process. Contact details for the CCCs can be found at myccc.ie/ Currently, there are four fee review cases which have found to be in breach of the fee management rules. There are a number of other cases currently being assessed, but I cannot comment on these until the cases are concluded.
