Department of Education / Commissioned Programs Sector Implementation Support

⁠⁠⁠There are new and redesigned grant and funding programs for the early childhood education (ECE) sector with distinct and new requirements. Services have increasingly required support in implementing the grants and funding programs to understand these distinct and new requirements to access the funding they are entitled to and to comply with the spending rules, data collection, reporting and acquittal requirements.

The revised Start Strong for Community Preschools and Start Strong Long Day Care 2023 programs went live in January 2023. Initial implementation support was provided from November 2022 to May 2023 through an RFQ process. The department has identified over 4,000 early childhood education services may need ongoing support to fully implement the new requirements of these programs, throughout a full program cycle.

The 2023 program also requires 4 new significant data collection periods (planned for July 2023, January 2024, March 2024 and July 2024). Services will need technical and business administration support to lodge the required data. The department will also require support to follow up with services who have not met the data collection requirements.

The 2024 Start Strong programs are currently being designed, with expected program guidelines to be released to the sector in August 2023. Services will likely require tailored business support in order to successfully implement any program changes.

The department is seeking to engage one or more providers with sector credibility and expertise, and capacity to deliver sector support from July 2023 to July 2024.

The provider/s will be engaged to provide support services to community and mobile preschools (there are about 740 funded community and mobile preschools) and over 3,200 long day cares in NSW. The provider will need to understand diverse needs and how the support requirements of the sector are met. For example, operational understanding of long day cares, community preschools, Aboriginal owned/controlled/operated services, cultural community understanding, and ability to deliver on the technical and data requirements.