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Date April 2015
Circular 2015/05
Category Funding
Early Childhood Education Funding
This circular is about
the July 2015 Early Childhood Education Funding Payment.
This circular replaces
2015/02
The action needed is

read this circular in conjunction with the Early Childhood
Education (ECE) Funding Handbook. File this circular for
future reference.

(if you are not submitting your funding claim electronically)
complete the attached yellow Early Childhood Funding
Return (RS7), make a copy for your records, and send to the
address below. All forms and electronic submissions must be
received by the Ministry by Monday, 8 June 2015.
Key dates
The key dates for the July 2015 payment are as follows:
Action
Date
Paper RS7 Returns sent to services (if
required)
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Final date for paper and electronic RS7
Returns to be received by the Ministry of
Education for funding to be paid on the
first working day of July 2015
Monday, 8 June 2015
ECE funding payment occurs
Wednesday, 1 July 2015 (overnight)
Correctly completed RS7 Returns received after Monday, 8 June 2015 but before
Monday, 6 July 2015 will receive funding overnight on Monday, 20 July 2015.
Contact details
If you need to discuss any ECE funding issues, please contact the Resourcing
Division Contact Centre:
Phone: 0800 ECE ECE (0800 323 323)
Email: [email protected]
Postal Address: ECE Operational Funding, PO Box 1666, Wellington 6140
Physical Address: ECE Operational Funding, 45-47 Pipitea Street, Thorndon,
Wellington 6011
To discuss your service’s early childhood education regulatory requirements, contact
your local Ministry of Education office. Contact details for local offices are available
at: www.education.govt.nz/contact-us.
Circular number 2015/05
Page 1 of 10
Contents
The table below outlines the contents of this circular:
Subject
Page number
Early childhood education (ECE) bulk funding
2
ECE Updates – ELI Principles of Use
3
ECE Updates – Electronic RS7 return
4
ECE Updates – Funding Handbook Update, April 2015
4
ECE Updates – He Pānui Kōhungahunga – The Early
Learning Bulletin
5
Other funding information
5-7
Equity funding
7-8
Early childhood education funding rates
9
Early childhood education (ECE) bulk funding
Bulk funding
cycle
The July 2015 payment includes:

wash-up February to May 2015; and

advance July to October 2015.
The wash-up payment for June 2015 will be made in November 2015.
Funding payments are based on the information provided via the RS7 Return.
General
payment notes
RS7 formats: Services connected to the Early Learning Information System (ELI)
are expected to submit their RS7 Returns electronically. If you have changed your
Student Management System or undergone a change of ownership during the
funding period, please contact 0800 ECE ECE or [email protected] to
determine how to submit your complete data to the Ministry.
Computer-generated printouts of your RS7 Return in the correct format can be sent
for processing. Please ensure you have still signed the declaration section of any
paper form. Faxed and emailed RS7 Returns will not be accepted for processing.
Postage and delivery dates: Please ensure you place sufficient postage on your
envelope and note delivery targets from your area so you allow sufficient time for the
mail to get to us. You can choose to courier forms to our physical address.
Staff Hour Count (SHC): For services required to return SHC, any situations (other
than an Emergency Closure approved by the Ministry of Education) where you are
claiming Funded Child Hours (FCH) and have no SHC data require an explanatory
letter to be attached to your RS7. Without this, any day with a SHC of zero will not be
funded. If you are submitting your RS7 Return electronically, please email your
explanatory letter to [email protected].
Fractions: Use whole figures only. Do not use fractions in any column. Funding
forms containing fractions will no longer be processed; instead they will be
returned to services for correction. This may delay your funding payment.
Advance days: Ensure you have included these in your Return, otherwise your
payment will contain wash-up funding only. Services cannot claim public holidays in
advance, irrespective of whether they will be operating on that day.
Email addresses: If we have your email address we will send you a courtesy
message when your RS7 Return is received. However, because electronic RS7
returns are received overnight by the Ministry, this process is not immediate.
Circular number 2015/05
Page 2 of 10
Advice notes: Funding advice notices are sent to services on the payment date.
The Ministry does not provide confirmation of payment amounts prior to this date.
Resubmissions: Resubmissions are available to correct genuine errors or
oversights that come to light at a later date. They should not be considered a normal
part of the process. ECE services are expected to do all they can to ensure the
accuracy of all data submitted. Resubmissions may be audited by the Ministry of
Education’s Monitoring Team to verify their accuracy. Forms which relate to prior
periods that are more than 12 months old will not be processed.
ECE Updates
This section provides updates on new developments in the ECE sector that you should be aware of.
ELI Principles of Use
ELI
requirements
The Ministry of Education will begin reporting on information from the Early
Learning Information (ELI) system in 2015.
To ensure the information used is complete and accurate, licensed early
childhood education (ECE) services, unless specifically exempt, need to return
the following information through ELI:
 children’s National Student Numbers (NSNs)
 up-to-date child enrolment and attendance information
 the ECE Return
 the electronic RS7 Return.
ECE services need to confirm the completeness and accuracy of their child
participation information through ELI at least once a month. The previous
month’s information needs to be confirmed by the end of the following month.
This is done using the confirmation function within ELI Web or a student
management system (SMS).
New ECE services should begin sending ELI information to the Ministry within
eight weeks of their licence being issued. Connecting to ELI and sending the
required information can be done through ELI Web or an SMS. The Ministry may
consider withholding funding if a new service does not begin sending ELI
information within the eight-week period.
Existing ECE services already connected to ELI need to act on requests from
the Ministry to make changes to ELI information to ensure its completeness and
accuracy, within eight weeks of first contact. The Ministry may consider
withholding funding if an existing service does not action requests to make
changes to their service’s ELI information within the eight-week period.
A new version of the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook covering
these new information requirements was published on 20 April 2015. The ELI
Principles of Use take effect from this date.
More information will be provided in the next edition of He Pānui Kōhungahunga
– The Early Learning Bulletin and on the ELI Homepage
http://eli.education.govt.nz.
Please email any questions you have regarding ELI Principles of Use to
[email protected].
Continued on next page
Circular number 2015/05
Page 3 of 10
Electronic RS7 Return
RS7 Returns
can be
submitted
electronically
The Ministry of Education was very pleased to receive positive feedback from the
sector about the electronic RS7 Return process, following the March 2015
funding round. We received over 1,600 electronic submissions.
Feedback from the sector indicated some early childhood education (ECE)
services that use student management systems (SMS) would like to know
sooner whether their RS7 Return has been received by the Ministry.
The Ministry sends emails to notify ECE services that their electronic RS7 Return
has been received. However, as electronic RS7 Returns are received overnight
by the Ministry, this means the notification is not immediate. ECE services can
check within their SMS to see if their RS7 Return was submitted successfully. To
find out how to do this, please contact your SMS provider.
The Ministry expects approximately 3,000 ECE services will submit an electronic
RS7 Return for the July 2015 funding round.
For more information about the RS7 Return process, visit the RS7 Return
questions and answers section of the ELI homepage http://eli.education.govt.nz,
or email the Ministry’s Operational Funding team:
[email protected].
Funding Handbook Update, April 2015
Updates to the
Funding
Handbook
The Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook has been reviewed and
updated.
There have been no changes to funding rates in this update.
The updated version is available in the Funding section of the ECE Lead website
(http://www.lead.ece.govt.nz) and details were also published in He Pānui
Kōhungahunga – The Early Learning Bulletin on 20 April 2015.
There are four important changes to be aware of:
1. New information about ELI Principles of Use
2. A change to the funding rule regarding the calculation of Discretionary
Hours and clarification of the uses of Discretionary Hours
3. A change to the process for Emergency Closures and Substitute Days
4. Explanation of the uses of the EC20 form.
The funding-related forms that make up Appendix 2 are now available in the
funding section of ECE Lead to download as individual documents.
A number of clarifications have been made to make Funding Handbook
information clearer and easier to understand. There have also been various
changes to layout, grammar and punctuation. These do not impact on the
information contained in the Funding Handbook.
Along with the changes to the Funding Handbook, three Education Circulars
have been withdrawn to reflect the clarifications made:
 2008/9 – Attestation of Teachers’ Salaries
 2007/11 – Attestation of Teachers’ Salaries
 2001/16 – Playcentre Qualifications
Circular number 2015/05
Page 4 of 10
He Pānui Kōhungahunga – The Early Learning Bulletin
New
communication
channel
This is the final edition of this general ECE Funding Circular. In the future, funding
information will be communicated via the Ministry’s new publication He Pānui
Kōhungahunga – The Early Learning Bulletin which is distributed monthly via email.
If you have any queries regarding He Pānui Kōhungahunga – the Early Learning
Bulletin or you would like to receive a copy of this electronic publication please email
[email protected].
Other funding information
The Funding Handbook, available on http://www.lead.ece.govt.nz contains the information you need
to help you complete your funding return (see Chapter 9, in particular). Clarification of some points is
provided here.
Service
providers
Many service providers have more than one service. The Ministry links services
under the same ownership into one service provider. Only one bank account can
be nominated for the service provider, which must be used by all services that
are linked. Any overpayments made to services are deducted from the total
funding paid to the service provider.
Sale of an ECE
service
The Ministry of Education does not get involved in the details of a sale and
purchase of an ECE service. Parties and their lawyers should, however, ensure
that funding implications are clearly considered within the sale and purchase
agreement, including provision for continuity of funding data to enable correct
completion of the RS7 Return for each period. The Ministry does not split washup and advance payments – these are paid to the account on record at the time
the payment is processed
Frequent
Absence Rule
and
Continuous
Absence Rule
Services can claim funding for frequent absences for a maximum period of three
months. At the end of the third month, if a child is still frequently absent, their
enrolment agreement must be changed to match the child’s actual hours and
days of attendance.
Note: Funding for absences in the fourth month must not be claimed and the
enrolment agreement must be changed to match the child’s attendance.
Where a child is absent for a continuous period, funding can only be claimed for
up to three weeks. A service must not claim funding for a child if they have been
notified that the child is not returning to the service. Please refer to Chapter 6 of
the Funding Handbook for further details and examples relating to the absence
rules.
Continued on next page
Circular number 2015/05
Page 5 of 10
Other funding information continued
Recording
enrolment,
attendance and
absence for
funding
purposes
ECE services are reminded to refer to funding information on
http://www.lead.ece.govt.nz, for information on claiming funding due to absences.
Services are also reminded that for funding to be delivered accurately and fairly, the
following three records must be maintained:



enrolment records (including accurate entry and exit dates)
attendance records
absence records.
Services must not state that a child:


is enrolled when they are not enrolled or
attended when they did not attend.
In the event of a funding claim audit, funding claimed incorrectly will be recovered by
the Ministry.
Playcentres on
standard
funding –
licensing
response
The Ministry will fund up to five sessions at the standard funding rate, per funding
period, when the minimum qualifications for group supervision are not being met.
A breach of the minimum qualification requirements for group supervision is a breach
in the licensing requirements so Playcentres will need to contact their local Ministry
office who will then assess the breach.
If the Ministry is assured there are no risks associated with the breach they will issue
the Playcentre with a standard response letter that allows them to continue to
operate and claim funding for the session.
Recognising
registered
primary
teachers in
teacher-led
ECE services
New Zealand qualified and registered primary teachers in teacher-led ECE services
can be counted as a registered teacher for funding purposes.
Funding and
teacher
registration
lapses
Teachers with registration lapses can be counted as registered on the Staff Hour
Count for three months from the date their application for registration renewal is
sent to the New Zealand Teachers Council. This period must not exceed three
months.
An overseas qualified primary teacher must have a New Zealand Qualifications
Authority (NZQA) assessment completed on their overseas qualification. If the
NZQA assess the overseas qualification as comparable to a NZ primary qualification,
and that teacher holds NZ teacher registration, then they can be recognised as a
registered teacher for funding purposes. For more information and a list of frequently
asked questions, go to: http://www.education.govt.nz/early-childhood/running-anece-service/employing-ece-staff/recognising-primary-teachers/
The centre supervisor or manager must sign and date a copy of the completed
application. The service must retain a copy of the completed registration application
on file.
If registration renewal is not approved within three months, a service cannot count
the teacher as registered after the three month period. Teachers should be counted
as Other after that time on the Staff Hour Count. Should registration renewal be
declined, the Ministry will recover any associated funding.
Continued on next page
Circular number 2015/05
Page 6 of 10
Other funding information continued
Completion of
the ECE Return
or RS61 in June
2015.
ECE services using the Early Learning Information (ELI) system are expected to
submit an ECE Return electronically through ELI Web or through their SMS.
Funding and
the financial
reporting
requirements
for the financial
year ended
2013
Services that did not provide a copy of their audited financial statements within the
required timeframe will have had their advance funding payment withheld from
November 2014. A notification letter was sent to all services that did not return their
financial statements on time and those that did not meet Ministry requirements.
Services must comply with the financial reporting requirements set by the Ministry.
All other services will be expected to complete the paper-based RS61.
Note: The 2013 audited financial statements were due on 30 June 2014.
The annual financial reporting requirements, including the deadline for submitting
documentation to the Ministry, were outlined in the Education Circular 2014/37 Financial reporting requirements for early childhood education services (available
online at www.education.govt.nz) and chapter 12 of the ECE Funding Handbook on
www.lead.ece.govt.nz.
Services will be contacted regarding the due dates for the 2014 audited financial
statements.
Equity Funding
General
information
It is expected that services that receive Equity Funding use this funding to achieve
goals such as:




increasing the enrolment and participation of children who are Māori, Pasifika or
with low socio-economic status;
keeping ECE fees low for priority families to support their participation;
encouraging and supporting family and whānau to actively engage with the early
learning outcomes of their children;
promoting acquisition of Te Reo Māori.
For background information on Equity Funding (including guidelines for reporting and
expenditure) please refer to the ECE Funding Handbook on www.lead.ece.govt.nz.
Equity Funding
calculations
The July 2015 payment will include Equity Funding based on the service’s actual
entitlement for February 2015 to May 2015.
Continued on next page
Circular number 2015/05
Page 7 of 10
Equity Funding continued
Annual review
of Equity Index
(EQI)
Licensed services may apply for an EQI review in October 2015. Services that
applied for a review last year should have received a letter in February confirming
the outcome. Successful applicants received their new Equity Funding in the March
2015 bulk funding payment. Funding was effective from 1 October 2014.
New services
and the Equity
Index (EQI)
New services that opened between 1 July 2014 and 31 December 2014 received
an email in March 2015 asking them to make sure their ELI data was up-to-date,
since the Ministry will now use ELI data to calculate the EQIs. Services not using
ELI were asked to complete a manual EQI application.
Successful new applicants will receive their new Equity Funding rate in the July
2015 ECE funding payment. Funding will be back-dated to the service’s open
date.
Services that opened between 1 January 2015 and 30 June 2015 will be emailed
in October 2015 to begin the EQI assessment process.
Equity rates
The current Equity Funding rates per funded child hour are:
Equity
Component
Low SocioEconomic
Special Needs
Equity Index
(EQI)
EQI 1
EQI 2
EQI 3
EQI 4
EQI 1
EQI 2
EQI 3
EQI 4
Rate per FCH
$0.97
$0.77
$0.42
$0.21
$0.47
$0.30
$0.21
$0.19
The current Equity Funding monthly grants are:
Equity
Component
Language
Isolation Index
Circular number 2015/05
Attestation
Value of Grant
per month
$410.81
1.65 to 1.83
$99.95
1.84 to 2.53
$150.52
2.54 and greater
$290.45
Eligibility
Page 8 of 10
Early childhood education funding rates
Funding rates
The table below shows funding rates for all services from 1 July 2014.
From 1 July 2014
Effective Dates
Under 2
Over 2
20 Hours
ECE
Standard
$7.28
$3.94
$8.76
Quality
$8.31
$4.45
$9.27
80% + Registered ECE Teachers
$12.12
$6.70
$11.43
50-79% Registered ECE Teachers
$10.97
$5.78
$10.41
25-49% Registered ECE Teachers
$8.86
$4.61
$9.15
0-24% Registered ECE Teachers
$7.57
$3.83
$8.34
80% + Registered ECE Teachers
$12.43
$6.92
$11.72
50-79% Registered ECE Teachers
$11.24
$5.96
$10.67
25-49% Registered ECE Teachers
$9.03
$4.73
$9.33
0-24% Registered ECE Teachers
$7.68
$3.90
$8.48
All funding rates are GST inclusive
Teacher-led home-based services
All day teacher-led services
All day Kindergartens
Sessional teacher-led centre-based services excluding Kindergartens
80% + Registered ECE Teachers
$10.77
$4.88
$6.29
50-79% Registered ECE Teachers
$9.79
$4.37
$5.72
25-49% Registered ECE Teachers
$7.98
$3.75
$5.05
0-24% Registered ECE Teachers
$6.95
$3.38
$4.67
$13.17
$6.60
$7.91
$7.74
$3.90
$4.96
Sessional Kindergartens
100% Registered ECE Teachers
Playcentre
Standard
Quality
$8.84
$4.44
$5.52
Licensed Kōhanga Reo – (except those recognised as teacher-led for funding
purposes )
Standard
$7.74
$3.90
$7.82
Quality
$8.84
$4.44
$8.30
Circular number 2015/05
Page 9 of 10
Further advice
For more
information
On funding matters (either ECE Funding or Equity Funding), please contact the
Resourcing Division Contact Centre
Ministry of Education
PO Box 1666
Wellington 6140
Phone (04) 463 8383
Fax (04) 463 8374
Email [email protected]
On licensing or general operational matters contact your local Ministry of
Education office. Contact details for local offices are available online at
http://www.education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/contact-us/regional-ministrycontacts/
On ELI visit http://eli.education.govt.nz or email [email protected].
On funding policy updates and changes, visit www.lead.ece.govt.nz.
For
information on
children with
special
education
needs
Contact the Special Education Information Line
For advice on
business
matters, tax,
and/or recordkeeping
Contact Inland Revenue on
ISSUED BY
Karin Dalgleish
Acting Group Manager Early Childhood Education
Early Learning, Parents and Whānau
Phone 0800 622 222
Email [email protected]
The Early Intervention Service within the Ministry’s Special Education Group works
with young children with special education needs, their families, and early childhood
education services. This service is available to children from birth until they are
settled into school.
Business and Tax Advice Services 0800 377 774
National Office
45 – 47 Pipitea Street, Thorndon 6011
Phone: (04) 463 8383
Fax: (04) 463 8374
www.education.govt.nz
Circular number 2015/05
Page 10 of 10