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Child Care

Volume 454: debated on Wednesday 13 December 2006

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many day nurseries have (a) closed and (b) opened since 2003. (107541)

The available information is shown in the following table.

Table 1: full day care providers

Opened

Closed

2003/04

2,500

1,100

2004/05

2,800

1,800

2005/06

2,300

1,300

March 2006 to September 2006

1,200

710

Source: Data: Ofsted

Ofsted data on closures include registered places in settings which are transferring ownership, and in settings which move from one Ofsted category to another, not just in those which are ceasing trading. For example, if a full day care provider moved to offering sessional provision, this would be recorded as a ‘closed’ full day care setting and an ‘opened’ sessional day care setting. The Ofsted data therefore exaggerate the true extent of turnover.

Ofsted have produced figures on the numbers of registered child care providers and places on a quarterly basis from March 2003. Their latest figures were published in their report “Registered Childcare Providers and Places, September 2006”, which is available on their website, www.Ofsted.gov.uk/

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many child care places have (a) opened and (b) closed since 2003. (107542)

The available information is shown in the following table.

Table 1: data provided by Ofsted

Places

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

March 2006-September 2006

Opened

238,600

254,100

214,800

108,900

Childminders

62,800

53,000

48,800

24,300

Full day care

98,600

117,600

90,900

47,200

Out of school

77,200

83,500

75,200

37,400

Closed

128,400

200,800

144,600

86,800

Childminders

50,400

63,000

44,800

26,300

Full day care

38,500

65,600

48,700

27,900

Out of school

39,500

72,200

51,100

32,500

Net steady state changes1

+24,600

+19,200

+8,900

+5,600

Childminders

+6,400

+6,300

+2,100

+1,600

Full day care

+14,600

+9,600

+5,600

+3,400

Out of school

+3,600

+3,300

+1,200

+680

Net change

+134,900

+72,600

+79,100

+27,700

1 The net steady state refers to registered providers whose registration status has not changed, but whose number of places has fluctuated over the period in question.

Ofsted data on closures include registered places in settings which are transferring ownership, and in settings which move from one Ofsted category to another, not just in those which are ceasing trading. For example, if a sessional provider moved to offering full day care provision, its places would be recorded as ‘closed’ sessional places and ‘opened’ full day care places. The Ofsted data therefore exaggerate the true extent of turnover.

Ofsted have produced figures on the numbers of registered child care providers and places on a quarterly basis from March 2003. Their latest figures were published in their report “Registered Childcare Providers and Places, September 2006”, which is available on their website, www.Ofsted.gov.uk/

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time child care places have been available in each local authority area since March 2003. (107550)

The Department is unable to provide details of the number of full-time or part-time child care places available as this data are not collected centrally.

Ofsted have produced figures on the number of registered child care places (by child care type) at local authority level on a quarterly basis from March 2003. Their figures are available on their website at www.Ofsted.gov.uk/