Bracknell Council Avoids £250,000 Childcare Overpayment

Bracknell Forest Council nearly overpaid childcare providers £250,000 because of software problems, it has emerged. Officers spotted an error in the IT system used to pay government-funded places, and it was revealed at a schools forum meeting.

At the meeting David Allen, the council's early years business manager, said the authority had experienced "severe issues" with software linked to the recent expansion of funded childcare entitlements.

He told members: "One of the issues we are facing with the recent expansion in the funding entitlements, we have experienced some severe issues with our software to the point where autumn last year if we hadn't caught an error in the software we would have overpaid our providers by £250,000."

Mr Allen said officers had put alternative processes in place to protect providers. "We have done our best to put in place processes so they haven't affected our providers."

The council is proposing to delay the introduction of new monthly payment arrangements for providers until April 1, partly to allow more time for the system to be updated and tested. Mr Allen said: "It will allow time for the software to be put in place properly. It will allow time for other local authorities to find out what the bugs are with the software instead of us finding out the hard way for a change."

The meeting also heard the authority wants to standardise how providers claim funding and reduce the number of different "stretched" funding models used across settings, which officers said has become harder to manage as more children access funded childcare.

Officers stressed the proposals mainly affect private, voluntary and independent providers rather than schools. Cherry Hall told members there had been "constant changes" to early years funding arrangements and said further reports were expected following a recent Department for Education consultation.

Comments at the meeting said the £250,000 overpayment did not occur because the error was identified before payments were made. The LDRS contacted Bracknell Forest Council for further information, including what caused the error, how it was identified and what action was taken.

Katie French, Local Democracy Reporter