Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Investment in early learning and childcare is at unprecedented levels with public funding exceeding €1.1 billion in 2024 for early learning and childcare – a clear demonstration from Government of the value of the sector.

Core Funding improves:

• affordability for parents by instituting a fee freeze in participating Partner Services;
• access by expanding the capacity being offered by the sector, particularly for younger children;
• quality including through improved pay, conditions and career structure underpinned by Employment Regulation Orders; and
• stability and sustainability for providers.

Core Funding makes a significant additional contribution to services’ income, allowing them to better absorb increased costs including energy costs. In Year 1 of Core Funding, 99% of services saw their income increase through Core Funding with 1%, or close to 60 services, receiving top up payments to ensure their income did not decrease for the same level of provision offered.

All services will have seen further increases to their Core Funding allocations from the second year due to the increased allocations towards non-staff overheads and administrative staff/time.

In addition, a number of targeted supports for small and sessional services were introduced in Year 2 of the scheme in order to improve sustainability of these services, specifically a flat rate top up of €4,075 for sessional-only services and a minimum base rate allocation of €8,150. These measures saw the average allocation under Core Funding for sessional-only service increase by 30% this year.

In a continued commitment to supporting these services, these targeted measures will continue to apply in the 2024/2025 programme year.

Through ECCE capitation and Core Funding combined, services receive a minimum of €79.20 per child per week and a maximum of €95.85 with additional funding for graduate lead educators and graduate managers and sessional only services will also receive an additional sessional only flat rate of €4,075.

The €287 million Core Funding scheme allows for substantial increases in the total cost base for the sector, related both to pay and non-pay costs thereby creating the conditions to introduce fee management. It is reasonable and justifiable that on receipt of Core Funding, services must agree not to increase their fees given the level of funding available.

Arising from Budget 2024, the Core Funding allocation for year 3 of the scheme will increase by 15% - to €331 million. This will support the delivery of a range of enhancements in Year 3 of the scheme to support improved affordability and accessibility for families, improved pay and conditions for the workforce and improved sustainability for providers..

Under the Core Funding agreement, Partner Services have agreed to provide validated financial returns. All Partner Services that have had an active Core Funding Contract during the 2022/2023 Programme Year must provide these validated Financial Returns for year one of Core Funding (1st September 2022 to 31st August 2023).

Following engagement with the ELC Stakeholder Forum, it was agreed that a transitional arrangement would be in place for financial reporting to cover year 1 and year 2 of the scheme. Specifically, in this transitional phase, the financial reporting requirements have been significantly simplified and streamlined, and is for an income and expenditure report based on a significantly reduced set of Core Funding Chart of Accounts nominal codes.

The Income and Expenditure Report must be completed and submitted by an accountant, from a registered practice or a registered professional body (ACCA, CAI, CPA and CIMA), on behalf of each Partner Service by 22nd March 2024.

My Department is working to ensure that adequate support is put in place to support Core Funding Partner Services with this requirement and is exploring additional supports, including financial supports for those that may need it. Once these financial supports have been fully developed, my Department will communicate these to the Sector.

Special supports are available from my Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, accessed through local City or County Childcare Committee (CCC).

This support can take the form of assisting services with interpreting analysis of staff ratios and cash flow, as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances.

I would encourage any service experiencing financial difficulty and who would like support, to contact their City/County Childcare Committee (CCC) to access case management supports. Contact details for their local CCC can be found at www.myccc.ie .