The instructions on this page were different in the following release(s):
3.80

Disability Access Fund (DAF) Overview

The Department for Education (DfE) introduced the Disability Access Fund (DAF) in April 2017 to enable Early Years settings to provide increased support for children with disabilities.

Three and four year-old children are eligible for the Disability Access Fund if they meet the following criteria:

  • The child is in receipt of the child disability living allowance (DLA). 
  • The child accesses the funded entitlement at the Early Years provider.

The three year-old funding period starts on the first day of the payment period following the child’s third birthday. The three year-old funding period then includes the following two payment periods.

Providers that take three and four year-old children who are eligible for the Disability Access Fund are entitled to receive an annual payment of £828 per child. The payment is made to a single Early Years setting nominated by the child’s parents or carers. The parent or carer needs to complete a DAF declaration form each year and confirm which provider receives the payment.

The parent or carer submits the completed DAF declaration form to the provider so that they can apply for the Disability Access Fund.

If the Local Authority has a licence for the Provider Portal Headcount, Early Years providers can use the Provider portal to make claims for DAF and the Local Authority DAF manager can use the Provider portal to approve or reject DAF applications.

The Student Details record in the One v4 Client is updated with details of the DAF approval.

Local Authorities that are not using Provider Portal Headcount can manually enter details of approved DAF applications in the student details record.

The Local Authority financial approver can generate and authorise DAF payments to the provider using the One v4 Client.

The Disability Access Fund Portal allows the LA Early Admin Officers and Provider users to:

Regarding configuring the Provider portal, refer to the Technical Guide: Deploying and Configuring the One Provider Self Service Portal for Local Authorities. This is available on ServiceNow.

Regarding making Early Years payments in the v4 Client, refer to Managing Early Years