Just as the phrase economic downturn seems to be on everyone's lips, there are signs of an upturn in the fortunes of the day nursery sector, with Laing and Buisson's latest survey showing occupancy rising to 80 per cent for the first time in five years.
This statistic may seem to fly in the face of reality for some providers who have had to contend with oversupply, often resulting from government-backed provision, and have seen their numbers of children attending fall in recent years.
Paul Brosnan, managing director of London-based Casterbridge Care and Education, says that average occupancy at its 24 nurseries remains 'absolutely flat' at 69 per cent, with 1,317 full-time equivalent places filled out of a total of 1,920. He emphasises that it fluctuates according to the time of year and he is sceptical of the often optimistic public statements about occupancy emanating from some providers, believing that they may be exhibiting a certain bravado to keep their investors happy.
He says that when the Laing and Buisson findings were made public he sounded out the views of other providers and reckons that 'the vast majority of big providers are probably in a similar position to ourselves'.
Significantly, perhaps, three of the company's best performing nurseries - at Kingston-upon-Thames, with an occupancy of 83 per cent, Fleet in Hampshire with 87 per cent, and Poole in Dorset with 91 per cent - are located either right next to or in the vicinity of railway stations.
Claire Richmond (pictured) certainly believes that the location of her Goslings Day Nursery, next to Coventry's mainline railway station, has helped to secure its 87.5 per cent occupancy, which means that it regularly has to redirect parents to other nurseries with vacancies nearby.
But there are other key ingredients in her recipe for such a healthy occupancy level - and, perhaps surprisingly, her marketing strategy does not include spending money on advertising, apart from the obligatory listing in Yellow Pages. Instead, she relies on word-of-mouth recommendation and events, such as graduation ceremonies for children leaving the nursery, inviting fathers for breakfast and mothers to coffee mornings at the nursery, to build its reputation and raise its profile.
For Debbie Wylie, the optimistic findings on occupancy tally with the experience of her Little Angels facility in Cramlington, Northumberland, where the 50-place nursery school for three- and four-year-olds has never been so full and only has one vacancy, despite the recent opening of a Barnardos' nursery just down the road. She has a full complement of two-year-olds across four days, and increasing numbers of babies.
But Ms Wylie says, 'The biggest influx has come through parents jumping ship because they have not had a positive experience elsewhere, and we have taken children who have been moved from private and maintained nurseries and playgroups.'
The nursery is marketed just twice a term in a local shopping precinct and its reputation is chiefly founded on excellent Ofsted reports and the full-time presence of a qualified teacher - a considerable additional expense, which she knows is paying dividends.
The degree to which occupancy levels are affected either positively or negatively by the credit crunch is hard to gauge. Ms Wylie believes that 'a number of economic factors are hitting home, and parents are putting their children in nurseries when they hadn't planned to before'.
Paul Brosnan says that economic problems may prompt parents to put in extra hours at work, needing more childcare. Equally, some children may be withdrawn from nurseries because their parents are being laid off.
What could dent occupancy figures, according to Claire Richmond, is any tinkering with the childcare element of the working tax credit that would reduce the current 80 per cent proportion which parents can claim against costs. 'If this was reduced to 50 per cent, then many people would decide that it wasn't worth going to work,' she says.
Tax credits and employer-supported childcare - which Laing and Buisson revealed had grown from 7 per cent in 2004 to around a quarter of all spending on day nurseries - have made 'a real difference', she adds.
For Derek Hayes, senior consultant at Childcare Consultancy, the key is to get nurseries to set targets - 'many of them don't' - and to ensure they measure occupancy from a marketing perspective. He has been involved in a pilot project funded by Croydon Enterprise to offer business support to settings in the south London borough. It has helped ten nurseries obtain £250 test trade grants to help them set up websites, increasingly a vital step as many parents search for childcare online.
Getting the right location may be a crucial first step, but raising occupancy also means 'getting the business basics right'. It is working in Croydon, and Mr Hayes hopes this type of business support can be mirrored in other areas.
