New National Childcare Finder

A new childcare finder has been launched by the Family and Childcare Trust, enabling parents for the first time to search for Ofsted registered childcare across local authority boundaries, through one simple postcode search.

The search identifies registered nurseries, childminders, breakfast and after-school clubs, children’s centres and contact details for local authority Family Information Services.

This is the first online facility of its kind and is particularly useful for parents who live on the boundary of a local authority area, who can now enter just one post code and view details for all the surrounding local authority areas. The childcare finder is at www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/finder.

Kate Miller, product manager at the Family and Childcare Trust said: “This free online search facility is easy for parents to use; they just enter their postcode to find registered childcare in their own local authority area and the surrounding areas, too.

“It also has links to guidance on how to get help paying for childcare costs, and how to choose childcare and other useful information such as children’s centres and Family Information Services.”

The childcare finder is run by Open Objects which pulls in information from every local authority Family Information Service website in England. The service will be rolled out to Scotland and Wales in the future.