John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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718. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs when she plans to furnish early years providers with details of the contracts her Department expects them to sign up to for the Government's more affordable childcare scheme which is due to be rolled out in September 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32947/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the grant agreements (commonly referred to as contracts) between the Department and childcare providers have been available through the Pobal website since mid-May. At that time, My Department also issued via Pobal a notice to existing providers indicating their availability.

I would note that the grant agreements reference two supplemental publications - the Programme Rules and the Financial Guidelines.

The rules of the schemes are currently being re-drafted to provide greater clarity and certainty based on feedback from the sector and from Pobal as the body overseeing compliance and administration. There are no fundamental changes to the rules of the scheme from those currently outlined and publicly available on the Department's website, entitled "DCYA Childcare Funding Programme Information and Frequently Asked Questions". It is expected that the rules will be published in their revised form in the next week or two.

The contracts also reference new Financial Guidelines which will provide further information on reporting requirements arising from the 2014 DPER Circular on the administration of grants. These guidelines will be prepared by an external body secured through a procurement process.

Services have always been required to keep adequate accounts, and to make these available to the Department on request. For 2017-18, the Department is requesting submission of these by default. It will likely be September/October when the guidelines referenced above are available. These guidelines will be a resource which will be accessible, user friendly and will include basic templates to highlight the type and level of information required.