Circular 2008/13 - Early Childhood Education Funding

Date: 1 November 2008
To end date: 1 April 2009
Circular number: 2008/13
Category: Funding

Early Childhood Education Funding

This Circular is about: The November 2008 ECE funding payment.

This Circular replaces: 2008/08

The action required is:

• Read this circular in conjunction with the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook (2007 updated); and
• File this circular and funding advice notice for future reference.

It is intended for: All Early Childhood Education (ECE) services, in particular the management of these services.

Further information

On funding matters (either ECE funding or Equity funding) please contact:
Resourcing Division Contact Centre
Ministry of Education
PO Box 1666, Wellington.
Phone: 0-4-463 8383, Fax: 0-4-463 8374
Email: resourcing@minedu.govt.nz [NO SPAM]

On licensing or general operational matters contact your local Ministry of Education manager.

Introduction

This circular provides background information to support the 3 November 2008 Early Childhood Education funding payment.

Early Childhood funding subsidy: November 2008 payment

Date of payment

Correctly completed RS7 forms returned by Friday, 3 October 2008 will be assured of payment overnight on Monday, 3 November 2008. Advice Notices outline how payments were calculated.

Funding months 

The recently submitted RS7 Early Childhood Funding Claims form data was used to calculate entitlements for the following months:

June 2008

Services advance payments for October 2008 were paid in July 2008. The wash-up payment for October 2008 will be paid in March 2009.

Late claims

Correctly completed claim forms received after Friday, 3 October 2008 but before Friday, 7 November 2008 will be paid overnight on Thursday, 20 November 2008.

Return dates of RS7 forms

The Resourcing Division thanks all services who returned their RS7 forms to the ministry by the due date. We understand that meeting this deadline can be difficult and places pressure on services.

These deadlines are in place to allow the Resourcing Division: 

• sufficient time to process RS7 forms, including checking and correcting errors on forms, and contacting services for the correct information (where applicable) 
• to guarantee funding to services who have their forms in on time.

RS7 errors

Some specific errors were repeats of errors made in previous funding periods. Please refer to past claim form errors and check all calculations carefully to ensure the same errors are not repeated before submitting the RS7.

Note: Any errors made on the RS7 Funding Claim Forms may result in differences between expected and actual payments, or funding delays.

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Funding changes effective from 1 October 2007

Funding and teacher registration lapses

Where a registered teacher’s registration lapses, they may continue to be counted as registered on the Staff Hour Count from the date they submitted their application for registration renewal to the New Zealand Teachers Council. This period must not exceed three months. Services accessing this provision must keep a copy of the completed application, which must be signed and dated by the centre supervisor or manager. Any teacher applying for registration renewal must provide their employer service with a copy of the completed application.

If after three months registration renewal has not been approved, the teacher must be counted as ‘other’ on the Staff Hour Count. Should registration renewal be declined, the ministry will recover any associated funding.

Support grant eligibility changes

The Support Grant for Provisionally Registered Teachers may be claimed by teacher-led services employing provisionally registered teachers in fixed term positions of at least ten consecutive weeks. More information on the Support Grant is available in section 5-2 of the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook.

Note: In order to claim the Support Grant for Provisionally Registered Teachers, the teacher must be employed with your service from the first working day of the month. In addition, if your service opened part way through the month you may not claim the Support Grant for Provisionally Registered Teachers for that month.

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Services offering Free ECE for the first time

Information for services opting into Free ECE

Services offering Free ECE for the first time will now receive funding advances for Free ECE on regular bulk funding payment dates only (1 July, 1 November and 1 March).

The EC20 Transitional Advance form must be completed in the normal way, and sent with the RS7 Funding Claim form.

New services offering Free ECE will continue to complete the RS3 Form.

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Early Childhood Education fund rates

Funding rate increases

The funding rates for all services are as follows:

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Equity funding

General information

For background information on Equity Funding (including guidelines for reporting and expenditure) please refer to the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook (2007 update).

Equity funding calculations

The November 2008 payment will include Equity Funding based on the early childhood service’s actual entitlement for June 2008 to September 2008.

Equity rates

The current equity rates per funding child hour are:

The current equity funding monthly grants are:

Annual review of equity index

Chartered, community-based services may apply to have their EQI reviewed in October each year. Application forms can be obtained by contacting the Resourcing Division Contact Centre or by downloading a copy from the Ministry of Education’s website www.lead.ece.govt.nz (keyword: equity funding). Applications for this year close on 7 November 2008.

New services and the equity index (EQI)

If you are a community-based service that opened between 1 October 2007 and 31 March 2008 your service should have received an address collection pack during September 2008. The information collected will be used to calculate your service's EQI which will be applied to your March 2009 ECE funding payment. Funding will be back-dated to when your service opened.

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Computer software programmes that produce electronic RS7 bulk funding forms

Information for services

The last two funding rounds have seen a high number of services submit incorrect computer-generated RS7 information.

In response the ministry has:

• contacted providers of the computer software programmes used to generate these RS7 reports. Each provider contacted has assured the ministry that the systems issues have been rectified. 
• notified services that submitted a computer-generated RS7 report with incorrect data to advise them of this issue, requesting the service ensure correct data is provided in future.

Process

Due to the high number of services providing incorrect RS7 data in the last two rounds:

All RS7 forms received with system-generated errors will be returned to the service for correction.

Refer to the list of system generated errors below.

Note

As in the past, the ministry is unable to guarantee funding will be paid on 3 November 2008 where a service has submitted an RS7 with incorrect data. Only services that have provided a correct or corrected RS7 by 3 October 2008 will be assured of payment on the due date.

Where RS7s have been returned to services for correction and the corrected RS7 is received by the ministry by Friday, 7 November 2008, payment will be made overnight on Thursday, 20 November 2008.

Types of system generated errors

The types of system-generated errors that were most prevalent in the RS7s over the last two payments were: 

• wrong months advised for Advance Days section 
• wrong months advised for Support Grant section 
• wrong months advised for Entitlement Period 
• Staff Hour Count (SHC) = zero, on days where Funded Child Hours have been claimed but the service did not operate 
• wrong number of Provisional Registered Teachers claimed

Please ensure these sections, in particular, are checked to ensure the information is correct.

Note

It is the responsibility of each service to ensure that their RS7 returns are completed correctly and returned within the timeframes notified.

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Further advice

ECE regulatory requirements

For further information or guidance on the early childhood education regulatory requirements, please contact your local Ministry of Education office.

ECE funding

For further information on the changes to the early childhood education funding system, please call the Ministry of Education’s:

Resourcing Contact Centre:
Phone: (04) 463 8383
Fax: (04) 463 8374
Email: resourcing@minedu.govt.nz [NO SPAM]
Postal Address: PO Box 1666, Wellington, New Zealand.

Children with special education needs

The Early Intervention Service within the Ministry of Education’s Special Education group works with young children with special education needs, their families, and early childhood services. This service is available to children from birth until they are settled into school.

Teacher registration

For further information or guidance about Teacher Registration, contact the:

New Zealand Teachers’ Council:
Phone: (04) 471 0852
Fax: (04) 471 0870
Email: inquiries@teacherscouncil.govt.nz [NO SPAM]
Physical Address: 93 The Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand
Postal Address: PO Box 5326, Wellington, New Zealand.

Inland Revenue business and tax advice services

For advice on business matters, tax and/or record-keeping, contact the:

Inland Revenue
Business and Tax Advice Services on 0800 377 774.

Issued by

Paul Burke
Acting Senior Manager
Resourcing Division
Te Wāhanga Whakarato Rawa

National Office
45 – 47 Pipitea Street, Thorndon
P O Box 1666, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: 0-4-463 8000
Fax: 0-4-463 8001