Job description
This is an opportunity to join the Council’s Early Years Funding Team, which is part of the Resourcing & Business Planning Service within the Education & Skills Portfolio.
This post will predominantly involve travelling to Sheffield based early years provider sites combined with working from home. The ability to be office based would be available if required, at Howden House.
The Early Years Funding Team, which is part of the Resourcing & Business Planning Service, is a crucial part of the Children’s Portfolio.
It supports the policy and strategy related to early years funding and is responsible for making payments to all Sheffield Early Years Providers to include Schools, Private, Voluntary & Independent Nurseries and Childminders, who deliver Funded Early Learning (FEL) places.
Sheffield’s Early Years Providers deliver FEL to children from 9 months upwards to 5 years of age and claim funding from the Local Authority in the form of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) Early Years Funding Block.
The Early Years Block of funding is circa £80m, and the Early Years Funding Team control and monitor this budget and are responsible for ensuring providers are compliant in the delivery of FEL in line with the Sheffield Code of Practice, which is the statutory framework surrounding it.
Due to the introduction of the government’s agenda surrounding Childcare Reforms we are seeking to expand the team. We are dedicated and committed to delivering exceptional services to Sheffield Early Years providers, its parents and children accessing childcare places and we have a “can-do” attitude.
This role will predominantly focus on carrying out the audit compliance role in line with government guidance, which involves visiting Sheffield early years providers. It includes support for the administration of the Early Years payment process, which is processed on a number of excel spreadsheets using advanced formulae.
You will also be required to support the development of policy and strategy for the Children’s Services Portfolio relating to Early Years Funding.
You should be a self-motivated problem solver with strong communication, organisational, and ICT skills.
For informal inquiries, please contact Lorraine Fox on 0114 4742034 .
We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.
It is a great time to join us and we welcome your application.
Under the Disability Confident Scheme, disabled applicants, who meet the essential criteria of this job, are guaranteed an interview.
All successful candidates will be required to complete a Basic DBS check.
Full-time employees work 37 hours for 52 weeks of the year and we offer a generous holiday entitlement. We are open to discussions about a wide range of flexible working opportunities which benefit you and the Council, including reduced hour contracts, working part time or as a job share.
If you are appointed to this role, your starting salary will be at the bottom of the grade. If you provide payslip evidence that your basic pay is greater than the bottom of the grade, we will consider starting you at the point of minimum advantage within the grade.
Equality of pay is extremely important to us. All roles at Sheffield City Council are going through an evaluation process which may result in changes to some pay arrangements from 2026. Find out more on our Sheff news page.

Please refer the Job description for details