1. Can retention monies be carried over into the 2011/12 financial year?
No. ALL capital allocations, including any retention monies must be spent by March 2011. Retention monies cannot be carried forward into the next financial year as is normally the case, because March 2011 represents the end of the three-year Comprehensive Spending Review period.
2. Can more or less money be used from the Maintenance element of the new Grant as required to support the programme?
(Many LAs have asked related questions regarding SSEYCG profiling over the period 2008-11).
The Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare Grant (SSEYCG) is allocated over three financial years, 2008-9, 2009-10 and 2010-11. There are some revenue elements with the Grant, but the information below relates only to the capital elements
Each LA has a designated allocation for each of these financial years and as is usual with Capital Grant, monies may slip into the following year’s allocation but monies cannot be brought forward from a later year’s allocation. It should be noted that, since this is the final tranche of funding, all expenditure must be made before 31 Mar 2011.
Within each year’s allocation, the Capital Grant is divided into three categories – Sure Start Children’s Centres funding, children’s centres maintenance and childcare: Quality and access.
In order to deliver the full core offer and particularly the target number of Ph3 CCs, LAs have the flexibility to vire funds between the three categories within the Grant, subject to the Capital rules above.
There is, however, a requirement to complete Ph3 children’s centres building projects by the end of Mar 2010 to meet the policy targets set down in the Government’s Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda, in particular the delivery of 3500 CCs by that date.
As a result, it should be anticipated that the bulk of the children’s centres funding will be expended during the first two years of the programme with only items such as retention and fees in the third year. children’s centres maintenance and childcare; quality and access may need to be deferred until the third year to match the allocations.
3. Can SSEYCG be used to carry out condition surveys on Ph1 and Ph2 children’s centres to establish allocation of Maintenance funding?
The cost of surveys can be capitalised if linked to existing capital assets, but this should be cleared through the LA’s auditors.
The surveys would need to be apportioned to the correct buildings and set up as new projects against the relevant CCs on the SureStart_on database.
Expenditure on such survey work should not prejudice achievement of either the full core offer or the target number of Ph3 CCs.
4. Are BREEAM assessments required on Ph3 SureStart projects?
Para 17 of Annex C of the Memorandum of Grant (MoG) 14.02.08 indicates that any project over £500k should achieve a rating of ‘very good’.
This should not be of particular concern on new-build projects (either stand alone or extensions), but may be more difficult to achieve on refurbishment projects within limited budgets.
Architectural consultants will ascertain (from LAs) that this is being achieved on individual projects over £500k that will ultimately be assessed at RIBA St D. Some discussion and negotiation may be necessary on refurbishment projects where a ‘very good’ rating is difficult to achieve at reasonable cost.
A ‘good’ rating may be allowable.