Discretionary Grants scheme

In Budget 2010, the Government announced an additional $91.8 million over four years for a package to boost early childhood education (ECE) participation of Māori and Pasifika children and children from lower socio-economic status backgrounds.

The Discretionary Grants Scheme (DGS) is being reworked to ensure funding is effectively used to increase ECE participation for priority groups. The Ministry is considering ways of doing this that are less bureaucratic and place less of a time, resource and compliance burden on groups who wish to access the funding.

Until this is complete the Ministry will not be accepting new DGS applications.

It is expected that a revised property assistance scheme will be available in October 2010. More information about this will be made available in the coming months.

The Government is committed to boosting participation in the ECE sector and meeting the needs of local communities; funding will continue to be used to support participation in high-need areas.

Groups that are considering the development of an ECE centre should continue to liaise with their local Ministry office.

Health and Safety grants

DGS Health and Safety grant applications are no longer being accepted.

Announcement

Five high-value property assistance grants have been allocated from the remaining DGS funds for 2009/10.  These grants provide some promising new initiatives and will provide information for future decisions.  The grants, totalling $4,210,012 GST exclusive will help create 234 licensed child places and retain 46 licensed child places.

The allocation focussed on targeting the funding, funding high-value solutions and focussing on improving the accessibility of services that respond to the language, culture and identity of Maori learners.

Three broad criteria were used: supporting iwi, working with Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust on low cost buildings, and working in good faith with previous recipients of DGS planning grants to target funding where it is needed most (with a focus on assisting property development in partnership with Manukau City Council).

The funding was allocated to the following groups:

• $150,000 GST exclusive to Te Taumata Matauranga o Ngāti Whakaue Trust as a contribution towards the establishment of Puna Akoranga in Rotorua, to initially provide 30 licensed child places, increasing to 50 places in future years.
• $1,276,707 GST exclusive to Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust towards the retention and extension of Te Amorangi Hapai O Rongokako Te Kōhanga Reo and Te Otinga Ki Tamaki Te Kōhanga Reo
• $949,300 GST exclusive to Fiji Community Association of Auckland Incorporated towards Bula Early Childhood Centre, a new 50 place service in Mangere
• $1,834,005 GST exclusive to Ngatihine Health Trust Board towards Kawakawa Early Childhood Centre, a new 100 place service in Northland.

Selection and allocation criteria

For these remaining funds, the following selection and allocation criteria were used:

Support to iwi

To provide support to iwi, the Ministry of Education identified that that it was already working with Ngāti Whakaue on the building of a licensed ECE service which would respond to the language, culture and identity of Maori learners.  This project met the aims of this allocation.  Funding to assist the service to open ahead of schedule was raised for consideration.

Working with Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust

Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust provides services which respond to the identity, language and culture of Māori learners. The Trust has recently developed high-value low-cost kōhanga reo specific building solutions that better support their kaupapa. The Ministry asked the Trust to present proposals for 60 low-cost licensed child places in two 30-place kōhanga reo.

Targeted support to previous DGS recipients

To work in good faith with groups already in the system, twenty-three previous DGS planning grant recipients were identified for consideration. In order to ensure the funding was targeted, these groups were prioritised against the following criteria.

1. Stage 1 Criteria: Be targeted to areas of very low prior ECE participation (To be applied to all groups), specifically in a CAU (Census Area Unit) assessed by Ministry of Education National Office as below 80%.
2. Stage 2 Criteria: Support groups which are ready to build (To be used should further prioritisation be required following Stage 1), assessed as groups holding or having lodged a valid resource consent for the project.
3. Stage 3 Criteria: Support the Counties Manukau Participation Project (CMPP) (To be used should further prioritisation be required following Stage 2), assessed as groups located in the TLAs of Franklin, Papakura and Manukau City. If required groups meeting this criteria can be further prioritised by an assessment of the projects contribution to interagency collaboration work underway as part of CMPP.
4. Stage 4 Criteria: Value for money (To be used should further prioritisation be required following Stage 3), assessed as proportion of total project cost to be met by government and per licensed child-place cost to government.

As a result of the prioritisation, five groups were identified as meeting the stage 1 criteria.  These groups were invited to apply.  Two of these groups also met the stage 2 criteria so were prioritised above the other three.  No further prioritisation was undertaken, as a sufficiently small number of groups had now been identified to proceed with.

All groups

In March 2010 groups were asked to provide information needed by the Ministry to make final funding allocation decisions. In May and June 2010 these were considered, and funding was allocated based on the priorities and agreed aims of the use of the funding outlined above. All applications were considered against the value for money criteria to ensure the Ministry spend was high value.