Early years and childcare: Ofsted's enforcement policy
Ofsted's policy on how we regulate childcare providers explains what we may do if a provider is not following the regulations.
- From:
- Ofsted
- Published
- 28 March 2019
- Last updated
-
17 November20242025 — See all updates
Applies to England
Documents
Summary of changes
HTML
Details
This policy explains how we regulate childcare providers, including childminders, nannies, nurseries, childminder agencies and other types of childcare. It also sets out:
- our powers under the law
- what actions we can take if providers are not following the regulations
- what we may do if we find out about unregistered provision
- a list of the things registered providers need to tell us about
Use our Report a serious childcare incident service to report accident and incidents to Ofsted.
Details
This policy explains how we regulate childcare providers, including childminders, nannies, nurseries, childminder agencies and other types of childcare. It also sets out:
- our powers under the law
- what actions we can take if providers are not following the regulations
- what we may do if we find out about unregistered provision
- a list of the things registered providers need to tell us about
Use our Report a serious childcare incident service to report accident and incidents to Ofsted.
Updates to this page
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Update history
2025-11-07 09:30
See Summary of changes.
2024-11-01 09:30
See ‘Summary of changes’.
2024-10-15 09:30
See ‘Summary of changes’.
2024-04-05 09:30
See ‘Summary of changes’.
2024-03-01 09:30
See ‘Summary of changes’.
2023-11-30 09:30
See ‘Summary of changes’ document.
2023-06-20 12:55
See ‘Summary of changes’ document.
2022-03-01 09:44
Reviewed the content to make it more accessible and user-friendly (no change to our enforcement powers and general approach to regulation). Details in ‘Summary of changes’.