Laois County Childcare Committee
As the new programme call 2025/2026 is in operation, on-site inspections for ECCE (including AIM Level 1, AIM Level 7), CCSP Saver and Core Funding programmes will commence shortly. The compliance process will involve a series of standardised checks aimed at confirming adherence with programme rules and contract conditions as set out by the Department of Children Disability and Equality (DCDE). Compliance Training for Service Providers Pobal will be delivering three webinars for providers covering the ECCE, AIM Level 1 and Level 7, CCSP Saver and Core Funding Compliance processes. Invitations will issue shortly for the webinars. One will be scheduled on 13 October, and two on 16 October 2025. Each webinar will cover the same content. We encourage you to take the opportunity to attend a webinar. After the webinar sessions, a recording will be made available on the Early Years Hive together with the PowerPoint slides. In addition, a Frequently Asked Questions document will be compiled and added to the Early Years Hive, to address questions raised at the webinars. Onsite Compliance Inspections To ensure minimum disruption and speed up the compliance inspection, it is advised that services prepare for an unannounced compliance inspection. We recommend that services collate relevant information for review (for example staff qualifications for ECCE sessions only, signed Parent Statements, ECCE / CCSP Saver Applicant Declarations, as applicable) in a Compliance File. This can be made readily available to the Visit Officer(s) on arrival. Access to child attendance and staff attendance records is essential ( for example with child/staff attendance recorded in real time per room and any absences recorded). In addition, fee records must also be available on-site to enable the Visit Officer(s) to complete the compliance inspection in a reasonable timescale. In this regard we request that the person in charge on-site has access to the Compliance File / records in the event of an unannounced inspection. Please only maintain compliance related information in the Compliance File. The Visit Officer will ask to review records from the beginning of the programme call for example 25 August 2025 for ECCE/AIM and 11 August 2025 for CCSP Saver. Core Funding commenced on 1 September 2025. In relation to attendance records, we bring your attention to guidance previously published on the Early Years Hive on 17 June 2024, which included the following extract: “… it is advised that the format of the attendance records is not daily sheets, but rather each page shows at least one week of attendance (i.e. weekly sheets/roll books). This will greatly support services when tracking attendance patterns of individual children, to assist in submitting weekly NCS Hive returns and keeping ECCE and CCSP Saver Programme registrations up to date. Compliance Resources on the Early Years Hive The Pobal Compliance team have uploaded the relevant programme compliance support documents which are available on the Early Years Hive under the Resources section. The documents are listed below and can also be accessed through the following links: ECCE Documents, CCSP Saver Documents
The following documents are being finalised and will be made available under AIM Documents and Core Funding Documents in due course and in advance of 2025/2026 programme compliance checks commencing on these programmes.
The Compliance Checklists are there to assist providers in identifying and collating all relevant documentation for an unannounced compliance inspection. The Compliance Guides are guides for providers that explain the compliance process. The Post Inspection Rectification action documents are checklists summarising what rectification actions providers must take, if found to be non-compliant. Please note – these documents are only supports, intended to assist you. There is an obligation on each Provider to familiarise themselves with their responsibilities under the relevant ECCE, AIM, CCSP Saver and Core Funding contractual conditions and programme rules.
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