Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many local authority run nurseries there were in (a) 2010 and (b) the latest period for which figures are available.

The department collects data on all providers offering funded early education via the schools and early years census data collections. Local authority run nurseries would be most likely to be listed in the ‘local authority day nurseries’ category. In January 2010 there were 463 local authority day nurseries with children in receipt of funded early education, and 428 local authority day nurseries with children in receipt of funded early education in January 2018. Local authority day nurseries with no funded children will be omitted from these numbers.

The provision for children under 5 years of age national statistics release shows the number of local authority day nurseries separately for 2 year-olds (table 12) and 3 and 4 year-olds (table 13): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2018. Where children received funded early education at more than one private, voluntary or independent (PVI) provider they have been counted only once. The PVI provider where the child took the majority of their funded hours is the provider reported in the statistical release figures therefore, if the local authority day nursery was not providing the majority of a child’s hours, they will not have been counted in tables 12 and 13.