Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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519. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the reason there has been a delay in capitation payments to childcare providers; and when they can expect to be paid. [46653/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Thank you for your question which I believe relates specifically to Early Years’ service providers' capitation payments under two of my Department's programme strands: ECCE Higher Capitation payments and LINC (Leadership for Inclusion) payments made under AIM (Access and Inclusion Model).

Administration of the ECCE programme, including all payments, is carried out by Pobal acting as an agent of my department. Until recently, one exception existed within this arrangement, namely ECCE Higher Capitation, a ‘top-up’ capitation fee within the ECCE programme, providing additional funding to Early Years services which are led by graduates of Early Childhood Education and Care degrees. While payments were processed by Pobal, the application and processing of ECCE Higher Capitation was still carried out by this Department. While my officials endeavoured to make this process as straightforward as possible, it was considered that this two-stage process, involving two administrative entities, was cumbersome for Early Years’ service providers. It had long been the intention of this department to transfer administration of the ECCE programme as a whole to Pobal, allowing for an improvement in efficiency.

On 30 July 2018 an official announcement was made that Pobal would be the administrator of ECCE Higher Capitation payments on behalf of the Department of Children and Youth (DCYA) with effect from the commencement of the 2018/2019 programme year.

Pobal opened the application process for the ECCE Higher Capitation 2018/2019 on 28 September 2018, via Pobal's online portal system.

The date of payments of the ECCE Higher Capitation rate will be individual to each service on approval of a fully completed application. Once an application has been approved by Pobal, they will pay services the ECCE Higher Capitation rate and any arrears due to them on the next available payment date.

In migrating ECCE Higher Capitation to Pobal, the DCYA completed the process of transitioning full administration of the ECCE programme to Pobal. Early Years providers are also now able to conduct all business relating to the ECCE programme with one agent, using the same system already in place to conduct all of their business relating to DCYA Early Years programmes, and have the full benefit of the resources that Pobal already bring to the Early Years sector.

Pobal endeavour to have applications processed within one month of receiving a Higher Capitation application. A delay may occur if more information is required from the service provider to fully process the application. Pobal has received an unprecedented number of applications for ECCE Higher Capitation so far in this programme year. I am very pleased to see that more Early Years’ services are becoming eligible for ECCE Higher Capitation, and my officials anticipate that this will represent over half of all Early Years’ services by the end of the programme year.

Officials from the DCYA and Pobal are already in dialogue around ensuring efficient roll out of the Higher Capitation payments in the 2019/2020 programme year, including opening ECCE Higher Capitation for applications in advance of September 2019.

In relation to the LINC (AIM Level 1) payments, Pobal has received 1,225 applications to date for the increased Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) capitation in relation to LINC. Of the applications received 92% have been processed with 89% of the total successfully awarded funding so far. Of these, 97% have received a payment in relation to LINC for this programme year to date.