RSS web feeds 
Share 
Print 
Email 
Save Childcare Act 2006
The Childcare Act, passed into law on 11 July 2006, is pioneering legislation – the first ever exclusively concerned with Early Years and childcare. The Act will help transform childcare and Early Years services in England for generations to come, taking forward some of the key commitments from the Ten Year Childcare Strategy published in December 2004.
Measures in the Act formalise the important strategic role LAs play through a set of new duties. These duties will require authorities to:
- improve the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes for all pre-school children and reduce inequalities in these outcomes
- secure sufficient childcare for working parents
- provide a better parental information service.
The Act also reforms and simplifies Early Years regulation and inspection arrangements providing for a new integrated education and care quality framework (for pre-school children) and the new Ofsted Childcare Register. The sufficiency, information and outcomes duties came into effect from 1 April 2008 and the remaining provisions from September 2008. For further information, see the following:
- Childcare Act 2006: Summary
- Childcare Act 2006 (full text from the Office of Public Sector Information website)
- Regulatory Impact Assessment for the Childcare Bill.
A number of new duties have been introduced under the Childcare Act 2006.
Associated documents
Summary of the Childcare Act 2006
(29.5Kb)
Download the contents of this page:
as a Word Document
Last updated on 28/05/2009
