The Frequent Absence Rule – a reminder
The over-riding principle of the Frequent Absence Rule is that a child’s attendance should match their enrolment as much as possible, even though this may not have an impact on a service’s funding claims.
- The intent of the Frequent Absence Rule is to help services to identify patterns of attendance that may suggest an enrolment change is needed. Keeping enrolment agreements up to date assists services to ensure their funding is calculated accurately.
- It is considered best practice to apply the Frequent Absences rule irrespective of how many hours the child is enrolled for. The Ministry expects that if a parent is breaching the Frequent Absence Rule for two months in a row, a service would be talking with parents/caregivers about their enrolment needs regardless of the funding caps and making any necessary amendments.
While we consider it best practice to apply the rule across all enrolment, irrespective of the number of enrolled hours, we appreciate that subsidy funding is capped at 6 hours per day.
Chapter 6-7 The Frequent Absence Rule of the Funding Handbook provides 6 steps that must be followed in relation to checking a child’s attendance pattern. Steps 5 and 6 relate to funding claims. These steps state:
5. Funding for absences in the third month must only be claimed if the child’s enrolment agreement
has been reconfirmed. If the child’s enrolment agreement is not reconfirmed, funding for absences
in the third month must not be claimed.
6. Funding for absences in the fourth month must not be claimed and the enrolment agreement must
be changed to match the child’s attendance.
|