• Find an early years and childcare inspection report
• Understanding an early years and childcare inspection report
• Types of early years and childcare Ofsted inspects
• Inspecting registered early years and childcare
• Types of early years and childcare Ofsted regulates
• Regulating early years and childcare; applying to be a provider
• Childcare complaints commitment
• Children's centres
• About our survey reports
• How to complain

Childcare complaints commitment

Our childcare complaints commitment gives parents and carers up-to-date access to complaints information; they do not need to wait for an inspection to take place to get this information.

When we investigate a complaint, we do not seek to prove or disprove it. The aim of the investigation is to see if the provider is meeting the requirements of registration and their conditions of registration.

Under the commitment we:

• publish complaints information when we or the provider has had to take action to remain compliant with the requirements of registration, including details of all the concerns shared with us
• publish new complaints information on a provider’s page on our website
  • this is separate from their inspection reports and is published as soon as we have completed an investigation
  • we started doing this with the latest round of inspections that began in September 2008
• remove complaints information from our website five years after the closure of the complaint’s investigation.

We include information about complaints received between 2004 and September 2008 in a provider’s inspection report.

We can make complaints information available on request for people who cannot access our website. We can send the information in writing or provide it over the telephone; you can call us on 0300 123 4666. For further information go to Concerns and complaints about childcare providers and the How to complain page on the left.

Taking action other than due to a complaint

There are certain circumstances where we or the provider might take action to meet the requirements of registration, but not as a result of a complaint.

For example, the provider may tell us about an incident that has occurred during their care service which requires some action, or the local authority may give us this information. In that case, we will write a summary of what action the provider needs to take to continue to meet the requirements or conditions of registration.

Since May 2010 we publish outcome summaries about action that we or the provider take to meet the requirements of registration on the provider’s page on our website that is separate from their inspection reports. We do not publish outcome summaries where no action is required. For further information go to Publishing compliance action and Guidance on writing complaint and compliance action summaries.