The fee relief data collection via SmartyGrants will be open from 18 March to 8 April 2024. The fee relief data collection is compulsory for all services that received funding under the 2023 Start Strong for Community Preschools program.

Yes, all services that received Start Strong for Community Preschools funding during 2023 are required to complete a submission via the fee relief data collection form.

Yes, you will need to provide a separate fee relief data collection for each of your services that received funding under the 2023 Start Strong for Community Preschools program. However, if you have a significant number of services, the department may be able to provide an alternative method of providing the required information. The department will advise providers eligible for this alternative process.

Mobile preschools that received fee relief funding under the 2023 Start Strong for Community Preschools program will need to complete the fee relief data collection.

However, mobile preschools that received fee relief funding under the Mobile Preschool Funding Program in 2023 do not need to complete a submission for the fee relief data collection in this instance.

Yes, the Start Strong for Community Preschools fee relief data collection is separate to the Annual Preschool Census. The Annual Preschool Census will be held in Term 3 2024. Information provided in the fee relief data collection will not impact the Annual Preschool Census.

The 2023 Start Strong for Long Day Care fee relief data submission is compulsory for services who received Fee Relief Funding under the Start Strong for Long Day Care program. Providers of services funded under both Start Strong for Long Day Care and Start Strong for Community Preschools programs will need to complete the collections for both.

Yes, if you are a service delivering both long day care and community preschool, you will have to complete both collection processes. The fee relief data collection is a separate process corresponding to the Start Strong for Community Preschools program.

The objective is to advise the department if your service has any amount of reserved fee relief funds or fee relief related deficit from fee relief funding provided to your community preschool between 1 January and 31 December 2023.

There are multiple ways for you to obtain this information:

• Fee relief data collection letter – the department has emailed letters to providers containing how much fee relief was paid to each provider for services funded under the Start Strong for Community Preschools program between 1 January and 31 December 2023. These letters will contain the figures required for you to complete the fee relief data collection accurately.
• Funding letters – consult the funding letters that the department sent on:
  • 22 November 2022 with the subject title ‘Start Strong for Community Preschools funding for January – June 2023’.
  • 6 July 2023 with the subject title ‘Start Strong for Community Preschools funding for July – December 2023’.

The department distributed the above funding letters to the main email address registered in the Early Childhood Contract Management System (ECCMS) at the time (provider email address).

• ECCMS – locate how much fee relief funding your service received by navigating to your service’s funding specification, clicking on the ‘Payments’ tab, and then referring to the fee relief payments made in 2023.
  • You can type ‘2023 – SS Preschool Fee Relief’ into the ‘Schedule Name’ field to quickly locate all fee relief payments made in 2023.

If you are having any trouble locating your fee relief payment information, please send an email to ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au.

Reserved fee relief funds refers to fee relief funds that were not applied to an enrolment. This includes one of the following:

• where the eligible enrolled child claimed fee relief at another service
• your service was allocated fee relief funding for more enrolments than your service had across 2023.
  

For example, if your service received fee relief for 10 enrolments, but only had 8 enrolments claiming fee relief, you would have 2 enrolments worth of fee relief funding that is considered reserved fee relief.

Surplus fee relief funds are what remains of an enrolments fee relief allocation after their daily fees are reduced as much as possible. Depending on your service’s fee structure there may be no surplus funds (for example, if your daily fees are higher than the child’s allocation of daily fee relief).

The figure that you provide in Section 2: 2023 Fee Relief Expenditure of the fee relief data collection form should include any surplus fee relief funds that are identified following the application of fee relief to the daily fees of an enrolment (regardless of whether that surplus has been spent).

Please visit section 4.6.1 Surplus and Refunds in our 2023 Start Strong for Community Preschools program guidelines for further information.

Please note that all figures that you provide should be exclusive of GST. Providers received an email detailing the total 2023 Fee Relief Payments excluding GST received by their service/s.

There is an explanation under each of these fields to assist you. For further assistance, please send us an email at ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au with the subject title ‘Fee relief data collection – service name’. Please ensure that you include your contact details and any submission information if possible.

Submissions can be reopened for providers to make any necessary amendments. You can send an email to ecec.funding@det.nsw.edu.au with the subject title ‘Fee relief data collection – service name’ to advise the department that you wish for your form to be reopened.

Please advise the department as early as possible if you are unable to complete a submission within the required timeframe. The department may be able to provide extensions in limited circumstances.

No, the fee relief data collection will not impact your financial accountability process.