1. Progress Sharing for LED meeting Autumn 2016
21st November 2016

2. About Portsmouth Cabinet Member for Education
Director of Children Services
Children’s Transformation Manager
Service Manager
Childcare Development Officer (Early Implementation)
Early Education Funding Co-ordinator
3 x Childcare Development Officers
2 x Early Education Outreach Officers
Childcare sufficiency Advisory Group Steering Group
Work Incentive Group
Initially we completed our bid with full knowledge and buy in from the council cabinet members and leadership.
We keep the council leaders and the cabinet members updated and involved with the early implementation of the additional 15 hours at regular briefings
Susan Stocker post is a secondment for the early implementation trial and leads on the project
Uptake of two year old funding is still a key priority in the city
Childcare Sufficiency Advisory group is made up of Our finance team, communications team, providers, pupil planning officer, parent/carer board rep
Work Incentive Group – JCP, National careers service, Roberts centre homeless families and tenancy support, YMCA

3. Delivery of Trial
Model: To work with families to encourage into work or to increase hours with families on low income.
Number of places - 415
National criteria but with a lowered individual income cap to less than £22,500
Reviewed in October 2016, increased to individual income cap to less than £28,000
All providers were invited to be part of the trial:
Numbers of PVI signed up - 84% (78/92)
School nursery classes - 2/11
Childminders - 53% 32/60
Funding rate for trial period - £4.88 for all 30 hours
Explanation of funding
Ensuring that no top ups
LPA and statutory guidance and changes to LPA as part of the trial.
Bearing in mind we had funding to offer 415 places- we needed to look at what criteria we would set. One of the challenges of working in a small city is that we wanted to be open, fair and inclusive so we invited all providers to sign up to deliver the additional 15 hours trial. We then needed to ensure that we identified approximately 415 children
We used national criteria, but lowered the earnings cap to £22,500
How we estimated the number of children that may be eligible and meet criteria for Portsmouth-
We knew the number of 3 and 4 year olds in the city
We knew the number of under 5s that had parents that did not work
We knew that average earnings for the city were £30,000
This estimate was the closest we could get to work out the numbers of families in the city that may be eligible. We would review this criteria at regular points. In October we increased the salary cap to £28,000- to increase numbers.

4. Little Peoples Nursery
60 place full day care setting
Operating 8am - 6pm, 52 weeks per year
Located in Drayton which is an affluent suburb of Portsmouth.
We are offering 15 places initially and may increase with further interest

5. How we approached the Trial
The parents have been interested in the offer and have been asking lots of questions about the criteria
Provided parents with information and application forms or sign-posted them to the local children's centre
Portsmouth City Council have offered business support sessions and learning sets; helping us review our business model and the way the funding will be delivered.
The increase from maximum annual earnings £22,500 to £28,000 attracted more parents interest to the offer.
The additional 15hrs is coming and will be in place by 2017 and there isn’t a need to be worried about the additional 15 hrs offer. We are in the position as one of the early implementer city councils to have the opportunity to test out ideas and ways of delivery before the full delivery in 2017, with the full support of a reflective and supportive local authority early years team.
We, as child care providers in Portsmouth, have been given lots of opportunities to have our say through consultations and describe what we would like to see in terms of delivery of the funding payments, supplements and support from the local authority services and I personally feel confident to deliver the additional 15hrs funding.

6. Key Challenges
Concern that future rates have not been published; adopted an attitude of ‘going with the flow’.
Currently we do not offer the funding stretched over 52 weeks a year; to maintain a good occupancy throughout the year we will consider this during 2017.
Being a full day setting one of our considerations were around access to the funded hours in terms of sessions, We are prepared to allow the additional 15hrs funding to be taken up as full days (8-6pm).

7. So what has worked for us?
Making changes to our registration procedures to:
explain how the additional funding can be accessed
explain it can be stretched across the year
Support from Portsmouth City Council
Identifying families that could be eligible and supporting them through the application process.

8. 3 top tips
Eligible children are likely to already be accessing your settings and may already be accessing the hours
Take the opportunity to network and fact find over the next year, locally and wider
Decide on your method of delivery and share this with all major stakeholders; think about what is going to work for your setting and the families who access the setting