Clause 52 - Requirement to register: other later years providers for children under eight
Childcare Bill
3:15 pm
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
As the hon. Gentleman says, where a provision on a school site is provided directly by the governing body—the proprietor—it will come within the province of Ofsted’s general inspection of the education facilities on the site. However, as he rightly says, there will be occasions when responsibility for that provision on a school site using school premises may not lie clearly with the school. Therefore, it will not be picked up in the inspection process, because it is not being provided directly by the governing body. It will be provided through a contract with a third party, using some of the school’s rooms or facilities, but with no accountability direct to the governing body. That is the key point.
In such situations and to ensure that provision complies with agreed criteria and children are safe, non-school providers, if I may call them that for a moment, must be required to register with the new Ofsted child care register that we have discussed. Therefore, when schools look after children under eight, even if they do so on school premises, under agreement with the school but not directly by it—