Nursery World - Is financialisation putting childcare provision in England at risk?

Antonia Simon, associate professor at UCL Social Research Institute, warns that the nursery sector is at risk of following in the footsteps of adult social care with a 'spectacular collapse' due to the high levels of debt at many large private childcare operators which are buying nurseries.

Readers of Nursery World cannot fail to have noticed that almost every issue carries news of a nursery takeover. In every case this is a takeover of a single nursery, or a small group, by a larger chain. Our new report, Acquisitions, Mergers and Debt: the new language of childcare, has tracked this trend. A forensic financial analysis of company accounts has uncovered a growing trend for private finance to acquire large numbers of early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings.

It is difficult to get an accurate size of the private sector because of inconsistent definitions. However, some estimates are published. These include a figure of 53 per cent of group-based providers being private from the leading childcare market research organisation LaingBuisson, and 61per cent from the DfE provider survey. There is a lot of sector volatility and turnover in ownership, with the sector increasingly experiencing acquisitions and mergers, and smaller nurseries being bought up by highly leveraged profit-focused companies.

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