Two Year Old Funding Overview
Two Year Old Funding administration is managed via the One Provider Portal.
Applications for Two Year Old Funding are made by the applicant via the Citizen Self Service portal, but they are reviewed by the local authority via Provider Portal | Two Year Old Funding | Manage Applications and Placements | Manage Two Year Old Funding Applications/Placements. The applications are then imported into the One Early Years module.
Parents, guardians and carers can apply for two year old funding with instant feedback as to their eligibility from the Eligibility Checking Service (ECS). Applications are loaded into the Early Years module for processing and batch checking.
The DfE ECS Endpoint includes qualifiers. A qualifier is an additional piece of information that is available via ECS when a check result comes back as Not Found. These qualifiers are interpreted and displayed to the person carrying out the check.
Two year old funding applications are made via the Citizen Self Service portal, and imported into One. Students and parents (carers and guardians) are matched via the Portal Back Office functionality. The applications are then loaded into One.
Two year old funding applications are imported using the same method as One B2B Student. Before this import process can begin, a dummy base must be created as a B2B Student Base. This can be done via One v4 Client | Focus | Bases | Base Definition or One v4 Online | Bases.
After a dummy base has been created a user is mapped to the dummy base. The User_ID is used to identify that a record has been received from the Citizen Self Service portal.
Local Authorities (LAs) have a statutory duty to secure funded early education for eligible two year olds.
The Two Year Old Funding Portal allows the LA Early Admin Officers and Provider users to:
- Start an Assisted Application as a Provider
Providers can make an application for two year old funding on behalf of a parent.
- Start an Assisted Application as a Child Centre
Children’s Centres can make an application for two year old funding on behalf of a parent.
- Make a Provider Assisted Application on Economic Grounds
The provider can help the parent make an economic claim for two year old funding.
- Make a Provider Assisted Application on Non-economic Grounds
The provider can help the parent make a non-economic claim for two year old funding.
- Start a Placement Notification
The provider can notify the Local Authority of funded placements for two year old children.