How we inspect childcare and play services

When our inspectors visit a care service, they will consider four core themes:

• Well-being
• Care and Development
• Environment
• Leadership and Management

We have two types of inspections: full and focused.

Full inspections

Most of our inspections are full inspections which are planned as part of our inspection schedule. Full inspections take place approximately six months after a newly registered service becomes operational. After that, we use an intelligence led scheduling model to determine the timing of the next inspection.

We expect all providers to have their own quality assurance processes which effectively improve outcomes for children attending their service. In 2024, we introduced quality meetings to support providers to make improvements. Please see the information about quality meetings below.

Using our intelligence led scheduling we prioritise services which need to do most to improve and schedule their inspection within six months. These services will not be eligible for quality meeting until we are confident they have made the required improvements.

During 2024 we reviewed our data about inspections and based on our findings changed the maximum interval between inspections to five years. For services which need to do more to improve, we will carry out an earlier inspection, with a maximum interval between these inspections of two years. We will carry out a quality meeting around midway between the scheduled inspections to support providers to make improvements before we next inspect.

Focused inspections

We may carry out a focused inspection in response to information we receive about setting or to follow up on areas of non-compliance at a previous inspection. These inspections only look at some elements of the setting. We do not usually award a rating at a focused inspection. If a focused inspection is to assess the actions taken by the provider to address non-compliance and a rating of poor, we will review this rating.

All our inspections are unannounced, however for child minders and open access play, we will normally telephone you one week before we intend to inspect. This is to check their availability and operating times to ensure they are operating when we visit. If we have not been able to speak to anyone, then the inspection will go ahead without prior discussion. However, providers are responsible for letting us know of any changes in the days and/or hours of operating. We will inspect any service at any time, especially where concerns have been raised.

Each year you will be required to send us:

• a Self Assessment of Service Statement (SASS) and,
• a review of the quality of care at the service.

More information is available from our SASS page.

From April 2019, all reports of our full inspections of childcare and play services will include a rating for each of the four themes considered during the inspection. This means a rating of Excellent; Good; Adequate; or Poor will be published in respect of the themes of Wellbeing; Care and Development; Environment; and Leadership and Management.

Newly registered services will receive a full inspection approximately six months after becoming operational, the ratings awarded will be published.

Our inspection report template has been revised to show ratings at the front of the inspection report and alongside each theme. It is our intention to publish ratings on our web directory in the future.

Important – read our reports in full.

We are responsible for regulating over 3,000 childcare and play services. This means that it will take several years for all services to have ratings published in their inspection reports. With or without ratings it is always advisable to read the report in full.

We have produced an inspection guide for child minders and daycare and play providers. We have also produced a tool for open access play providers when assessing staff ratios.

From January 2019, we have jointly inspected care and education in regulated non-school services eligible for funding for part-time education.

During these joint inspections, we inspect the care of all children up to the age of 12 and the education of three and four-year-olds that do not receive education in a maintained setting.

Our joint inspections deliver

• One inspection report that covers standards in both childcare and education
• A revised inspection framework that covers fewer, but broader areas
• New timescales for the length, frequency and notice period for an inspection

Please see below our published inspection guidance, a factual accuracy document, and a follow-up document for the joint inspections.

We introduced quality meetings between inspections to enable providers to update us about any improvements they have made since the last inspection. We would also like to hear about any planned future improvements and will signpost providers to other sources of advice and support which may be of assistance to them.

Guidance for providers

We’ve put together the video below and a quality meeting guidance for providers document to give you more information on what to expect at your quality meeting and how to prepare for it.