The first figures produced by the inspection service show a marked improvement in levels of provision, compared with the one in seven chance of getting a childcare place that was shown in the 2001 Children's Day Care Facilities statistics published by the Department for Education and Skills.
Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said the growth in day nurseries to 9,600 in England, providing 383,000 places, represented a 34 per cent increase on 2001, when there were 7,800 nurseries and 285,000 places.
She attributed the rise in places to 'childcare entrepreneurs responding to the needs of parents and their local communities'. She added that most of them were women and single-site operators, 'women with families supporting other women with families in their neighbourhood'.
But Ms Murphy warned, 'There is, however, another story behind the figures - while the number of places has increased, occupancy has dropped, creating real sustainability issues for some day nurseries.'
Ensuring parental choice meant that some places were inevitably left vacant, she said, but she stressed that nurseries could not be viable without high occupancy. 'The question for the Government is whether it can achieve the aims of the national childcare strategy by leaving the lion's share of the day nursery sector entirely at the mercy of market forces.'
The Ofsted figures indicate that there are 4,753,900 children under eight in England and 985,400 registered childcare places. In addition to the day nursery places, there are 68,200 childminders providing 300,600 places and 8,000 out-of-school clubs supplying 301,600 places.
The Pre-School Learning Alliance said that 12,000 new childcare places had been created in community-based pre-schools in the past year. A spokesperson said, 'We welcome Ofsted's publication of these new statistics, which highlight a further step towards achieving the aims of the National Childcare Strategy.'
Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, said, 'Clearly the childcare gap is closing. There are more childcare places than ever before in full-time care and out-of-school clubs'.
But the number of registered childminders has fallen from 72,300 in 2001 to 68,200, with a reduction of 4,000 places. There were 109,200 registered childminders in 1992, and after a fall to 87,200 in 1993, the number rose again to 102,600 in 1996, but it has consistently fallen since then.
It is not clear whether the reported slow pace in Ofsted inspection of childminders may mean that the actual number of childminders is higher.
