Consultation outcome

Publication of statistics on childcare providers and inspections

Updated 11 May 2021

This consultation seeks your views on proposed changes to our statistical release on childcare providers and inspections. We are seeking the widest possible range of views to ensure that the publication meets the needs of all users with an interest or expertise in early years. The closing date for this consultation is 28 February 2021.

About Ofsted

The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people and in education and skills for learners of all ages.

Purpose and background to the consultation

This consultation seeks users’ views on proposed new arrangements for the childcare providers and inspections statistics that are published by Ofsted. Your contribution will help to refine and develop the publication to meet users’ needs.

The publication we are consulting on reports on registered childcare providers and places, inspection outcomes and movement in the childcare sector. The publication is currently published 3 times per year on GOV.UK.

These proposals only affect how we report on childcare providers and inspections in our statistical datasets. They do not affect the frequency of inspections, the data that is used during an inspection or the way that inspection reports are published.

Aim of the consultation

The aim of this consultation is to investigate how Ofsted can make the content of this official statistics publication more useful.

Responses will inform the review of the publication. The consultation closes on 28 February 2021 and results will be published in spring 2021.

Proposals

We are proposing some changes to the childcare providers and inspections publication, namely:

• reducing the publication frequency of our official statistics on childcare providers and inspections from 3 times to 2 times per year
• publishing management information twice per year to provide more regular updates to the data
• making changes to data tables to provide a more detailed picture of the childcare sector

We believe that:

• fewer official statistics releases will allow more in-depth analysis in these publications, with the addition of some new tables on deprivation, nursery groups and regulatory visits
• more frequent data releases will keep the sector more informed and up to date with trends in childcare providers and inspections

We are proposing to make these changes from spring 2022.

Proposal 1: reducing the frequency of the official statistics

We propose to reduce the publication frequency of the childcare providers and inspections official statistics from 3 times per year to twice per year (1 September to 31 March and 1 April to 31 August).

This will allow for richer analyses at less frequent intervals, rather than regular, potentially similar analyses at shorter intervals. This gives more insight and adds value for users.

Given the large number of providers in the early years sector, only marginal changes are seen during a 3- to 4-month reporting period. Reducing the frequency of the publication to twice per year will enable us to show trends and changes representing a higher number of inspections, joiners and leavers over the reporting period.

We would reduce the publications to twice per year:

• one in June, showing the state of the sector as at the end of March
• one in November, showing the state of the sector as at the end of August

The August data publication will also coincide with our Annual Report.

In short, we will stop publishing the December data in order to enhance the March data publication. This will mean users waiting longer than previously for the data up to and including December. However, we believe the subsequent improvements in the March release will make this an overall benefit for our users.

Proposal 2: providing management information

We propose to begin publishing management information to provide updates to the data in between more detailed official statistical releases.

Management information will be published twice per year:

• in January/February for data as at 31 December
• in July/August for data as at 30 June

In Ofsted, management information is an aggregation and summary of administrative data. This data is used in the normal course of business to inform operational delivery, policy development or the management of organisational performance.

Producing management information as well as official statistics will increase the frequency of the early years data release. This will mean that we are providing more timely data and will be keeping the sector up to date with more recent trends.

This publication will be developed as part of an iterative process over time. Alongside this consultation, we have provided an example of how the initial publication of management information will look. This approach will allow for more flexibility in the design process in order to provide aggregate data that is suitable for the user need.

Proposed publication schedule from spring 2022

Publication	Detail
Management information (released in January/February)	This publication will detail in-year inspections 1 September to 31 December (4 months) and most recent inspections as at 31 December.
Official statistics (released in June)	This publication will detail in-year inspections 1 September to 31 March (7 months) and most recent inspections as at 31 March. This data will coincide with the end of the financial year. This publication will also include revised inspections from the previous official statistics release.
Management information (released in July/August)	This publication will detail in-year inspections 1 April to 30 June (3 months) and most recent inspections as at 30 June.
Official statistics (released in November)	This publication will detail in-year inspections 1 April to 31 August (5 months) and most recent inspections as at 31 August. This data will coincide with the end of the academic year. This publication will also include revised inspections from the previous official statistics release.

Proposal 3: changes to data tables

To allow for more detailed reporting and deeper insight into the early years data, we propose to make some changes to the ‘data, charts and tables’ file.

These changes will provide a more detailed picture of the childcare sector.

The changes to data tables

First, we propose to introduce additional tables to enable us to provide more detailed analysis to our users on findings such as:

• inspection outcomes by deprivation band
• nursery groups by their size and inspection outcomes
• the number of regulatory visits by provider type

Also, we propose to remove ‘table 9: inspection outcomes of inadequate early years registered providers’ where there were no children on roll at the time of a provider’s re-inspection. This is because we believe the table provides little added value.

Finally, we propose to combine these 2 tables:

• table 12: early years registered providers complying with the requirements of the Childcare Register at their most recent inspection, by provider type
• table 13: providers on the Childcare Register only complying with the requirements of the Childcare Register at their most recent inspection, by provider type

Consultation process

We welcome your responses to this consultation. The consultation opens on 19 January 2021 and closes on 28 February 2021.

We will publish a report on the outcome of this consultation in spring 2021.

Ways to respond to this consultation

Please submit your response to the consultation using our online survey.

If you have any difficulties using the online survey, please email childcaredataqueries@ofsted.gov.uk with the details so we can offer you an alternative that meets your needs.