Free Entitlement COVID-19 Sustainability Grant – Autumn 2020

Email dated 09.02.2021

Dear Free Entitlement Providers,

COVID-19 Sustainability Grant – Autumn 2020

Thank you for your patience whilst we have carried out a comparison of your Autumn 2020 headcount / school census to your Autumn 2019 submissions. We have found that:

• Over 160 providers suffered a financial loss;
• Approx 10 providers remained the same (no loss or gain);
• Over 90 providers made a financial gain.

For the 160+ providers who have lost funding, we will be instructing an immediate first payment to cover 50% of the lost free entitlement funding from the Autumn 2020 term, with a view to making a second payment at the end of February 2021.

The size of the second payment is dependent on knowing the number of children contained in the remaining school / academy censuses for the Spring 2021 term. The impact of COVID-19 on attendance of Early Years places has made it impossible to make an estimation of what the take up will be with any accuracy. Whilst our team will have some of this data by mid-February, approximately half of the censuses won’t be available until late March 2021, so they will use those we have to make a determination of how much funding we need for the rest of the Spring 2021 term. As you know, the January data is the figure from which all of our Early Years funding is calculated and so we must act with caution.

If at all possible, the second payment will be the full remaining 50% from the Autumn 2020 term.  However, if the remaining censuses are lower than expected, it may not be possible to pay this in full and have sufficient funds to cover payments for the rest of this financial year. If this proves to be the case, the second payment will be the maximum possible based on available funding and we will investigate whether additional Covid funding can be secured to support any shortfall. Please be assured that the team are prepared and ready to complete the analysis the moment this information arrives and we will be able to tell you how much the second payment will be straight after the half term break.

The first payments will be issued without delay so please watch out for a BCC remittance email but if you have any queries then please contact the Early Years Team by emailing eyclaims@bristol.gov.uk. Thank you for you continued patience whilst we carry out these final checks.

Regards

Richard Hanks,
Head of Learning City for all