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EYES Update 25 August 2020

EYES Update 25 August 2020

Despite COVID-19, Early Childhood Ireland’s Early Years Employer Service (EYES) is here to support you and can be contacted Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm, by phone on (01) 405 7103 or by email on eyes@earlychildhoodireland.ie. The EYES team is here to help with a range of issues related to the running of an early years and school aged service, including your questions on COVID-19 (coronavirus). If you can’t reach us, please leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will call you back when they are available.

 

ECCE PPSN Verification on The Hive

A number of members have reported issues with ECCE registrations on the Early Years Hive, with names not matching the PPS numbers of children. Having consulted with Pobal, the advice is that the child’s name needs to be a direct match with how it appears on the PPSN database. That means for example, ‘Jamie’ will not match with ‘James’ or ‘Ann Marie’ will not match with ‘Ann-Marie’ or even 2 names will not match if 5 names are present on the Database.

Pobal has also published a guide, which we hope will be able to assist. You can find this here.

We would also recommend reading through the ECCE registration Guide. The document contains steps to submit an ECCE registration on the Hive (including registration requests).

 

Returning from sick leave

When staff return from sick leave, best practice dictates that employers go through a Return to Work process with their employees.

In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, going through a Return to Work process with your employees following illness takes on new importance. Employers should ensure that staff are fit to work, they no longer have symptoms and are safe to return to the service. In light of the HPSC guidance for the sector, the best way to protect against a COVID-19 outbreak in your setting, is to ensure that staff with symptoms do not come to work.

To assist members, the Early Years Employer Service team has developed a Return to Work resource which can be purchased in the Early Childhood Ireland Shop. This resource has sections for detailing the absence, recording the frequency of staff absence, detailing the return to work and a space for any other actions. You can also buy this resource as part of our HR Pack.

 

The EWSS and AIM Funding

A number of members have been querying how AIM funding will work with the new EWSS, and plans for this were announced by the DCYA. According to the DCYA:

“The wages of an employee may be supported through either the EWSS or AIM Level 7 capitation, but not both. It is open to a service provider to choose whichever of EWSS or AIM Level 7 funding is most advantageous to them.

Accordingly, services approved for AIM Level 7 capitation are confirming to Pobal that they will not claim funding from the EWSS to support wages of any employee whose wages are covered or subsidised by AIM level 7 funding. In accordance with clause 8 of the ECCE 2020/21 Funding Agreement, services in receipt of AIM Level 7 capitation may be required to provide payroll details (with the personal data of the employee redacted to comply with GDPR requirements) during Pobal compliance checks.”

 

Higher Capitation Applications 2020/2021

Applications to the Higher Capitation on the ECCE 2020/21 Programme Call are now open for providers on the Early Years Hive.

Members can find the Higher Capitation Application Quick Guide here.

 

 

Do you have a question for the Early Years Employer Service team?

Please submit your question below and see it featured in upcoming EYES updates in Early Times Weekly.

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