Over the past few years, it has been clear that day nurseries have been on the increase, pre-school numbers have fallen, partly as some have extended their hours to offer full daycare, and childminders have been dropping out of the sector. Out-of-school clubs proliferated at one stage, but their growth then stalled.
So it is disappointing and somewhat puzzling that the new format from Ofsted giving figures to the end of December 2008 makes it impossible to gain a detailed breakdown by type of provider (see News, page 4).
The report now groups providers as 'childminders'; 'childcare on non-domestic premises', covering full daycare, sessional care, out-of-school clubs and creches; 'childcare on domestic premises', ie more than three childminders in a home; and 'home childcarers', that is, nannies on the Voluntary Childcare Register.
Providers are then further split by whether they are on one or more of the Early Years Register, the Childcare Register or the Voluntary Childcare Register. In practice, it is not possible to tell, for example, how many full daycare providers or out-of-school clubs there are in England and whether the number is going up or down.
Ofsted says it is complying with new legal definitions of providers that came into effect last September. However, as the figures cannot hide the fact that numbers of providers have dropped by 8,181 since the end of August, the effect, if not the intention, is to withhold vital information about the sufficiency of childcare.
