Evaluation des Vollzugs» ( pdf-Datei, 1.2 MB, 101 Seiten)

Financial assistance for extra-family childe care
Procedure evaluation
Summary
the FSIO’s forms A and B concerning the financial and structural aspects of a project in no way
exceed the investigations that any agency should carry out before opening a new child-care centre
or expanding an existing one. In this connection, “educational value” is also mentioned which
applicants for funding are required to demonstrate with regard to the opening and extension of
child-care centres. The reason for the problems that the agencies are having regarding filling in
the forms lies principally in the structure of the extra-family child-care centres. In many cases, the
staff of the agency are volunteers. This often results in a lack of professionalism, in particular with
regard to financial planning for a project. It must be said, however, that applications received from
local authorities are also often incomplete.
4. One problem that was repeatedly voiced by the agencies and in particular by the cantonal authorities
is the requirement that agencies must draw up a funding concept that covers at least 6
years. Despite the fact that this forces the agencies to consider the necessary long-term existence
and funding of the child-care facility, it is extremely difficult for them to predict with any certainty
how demand will develop as well as, in the case of projects that receive local funding, what
financial support will be available from local authorities (who normally have a 4-year budget) over
the coming 6 years. In any case, in the FSIO’s opinion, the difficulties that the agencies have
concern more how things will develop during the first year of operation rather than financial planning
for the fifth and sixth years.
5. On average, the agencies claimed that it takes them 8½ hours to draw up their annual accounts
concerning outside funding; this represented a problem for over half the agencies questioned.
This time was spent filling in the attendance form as well as drawing up an annual account for
each year that funding was received. In the meantime, the FSIO has started informing the successful
applicants about the requirements as to annual accounting when they are notified about
the final decision concerning funding, so that they can take the necessary steps. The agencies
can now also use their own attendance forms. Since funding is based on the number of children
cared for, it is essential that statistics concerning attendance are submitted for each year that
funding is received.
When they draw up their annual accounts the agencies have a problem in that often the financial
year with which they normally work does not correspond to the 12 months covered by the funding
received and for which they must account. In most cases the agencies report that they have to
extract the required information for the annual financial report from two different years of their
own accounts, which is a painstaking job. The question therefore arises as to whether it would be
possible to adjust the year covered by the annual financial report to the authorities so that it coincides
with the agency’s own financial year. According to the FSIO, it is essential that annual financial
reports are submitted for each year that funds are provided in order for the amount of
funding to be fixed, since it is only in this way that agencies’ financial reporting can be verified.
According to the Federal Audit Office, such verification is part of the internal audit system that
they impose.
6. Some teething problems were encountered when the project started, mainly concerning the fact
that applications had to be submitted to the FSIO 12 weeks at the latest before the facility
opened, before it was expanded or before other steps were taken. Many agencies submitted their
applications too late, with the result that they were rejected by the FSIO on the grounds that the
deadline had not been respected. In the meantime the number of applications refused on these
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