Assessing and Securing Sufficient Childcare
The Childcare Act 2006 gave all local authorities a new duty to prepare, by 31 March 2008, assessments of the sufficiency of childcare in their areas. These assessments were intended to map the supply of, and demand for, childcare, and to identify gaps between the two, in readiness for the new duty on local authorities to secure sufficient childcare for working parents from 1 April 2008.
In April 2008, the Department for Children, Schools and Families commissioned the Office for Public Management Ltd. (OPM) to review a representative sample of 40 childcare sufficiency assessments. The study had two main purposes: to examine whether local authorities had completed their childcare sufficiency assessments in a consistent and valid way which satisfied the requirements of the Childcare Act 2006; and to identify key findings in relation to gaps between supply and demand for childcare.
OPM have now provided the Department with the following report on the findings of the study: Reviewing Childcare Sufficiency Assessments.
This page was last updated on 12 June 2008
