The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said day nurseries were being treated unfairly because, unlike playgroups and pre-schools, they must have a staff:child ratio of 1:4 for children under three. Ofsted recently changed its rules to allow playgroups to treat children whose third birthday falls within a term to be classed as being three from the beginning of that term, for the purpose of staff ratios.
Mary Graveney, proprietor of the Ambourne House Day Nursery, said her colleagues in the 47-member South Gloucestershire Private Nurseries'
Association felt 'very strongly indeed that we are being discriminated against'. She has written to education secretary Charles Clarke, enlisted the backing of her MP and received a 'very sympathetic' response from her local Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership in a bid to get a level playing field for all providers on the staff ratio issue.
Mrs Graveney said, 'What we want is equality. We have always worked on the basis that under-threes had a ratio of one staff to four children. Why should playgroups, which only have two qualified staff plus parent helpers, be allowed to move to a ratio of 1:8 for this age group when nurseries aren't? It does seem that the standards are stacked heavily in the playgroups' favour.'
She wrote a letter to Elspeth Davis, Ofsted divisional manager for the south-west region, in which she said the Association was 'appalled to discover this ruling applies only to "sessional" care, which you class as pre-school/playgroups' and added, 'From the inspections that have been carried out by your office, your inspectors will, I'm sure, gladly confirm to you that in the majority of nurseries, care ranges from between 90 to 98 per cent sessional to 2 per cent to 10 per cent full-time.'
Ms Davis wrote back confirming the changes for playgroups, and insisting that 'children attending full-day care on a part-time basis cannot be counted as attending sessional care'.
But NDNA chief executive Rosemary Murphy saw no difference for a child between attending a playgroup for a four-hour session and spending a similar length of time in a day nursery. She said, 'There is a misconception in the way the rules are being applied here that a child in a day nursery is there from dawn till dusk. That's just not the case.'
Mrs Graveney pointed out that as well as the economic strain of having to reassign staff when children turned three, there could be health and safety implications. 'If an under-three in a playgroup is not toilet trained, do they refuse entry to that child or do they change nappies?' she asked. 'If so, do they come under environmental health regulations as we do to have the clinical waste stored and removed from our premises?'
A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman said, 'Our focus is always on what's best for the safety, care and well-being of children. The law on childcare provision has been developed with this in mind.
'We understand that some providers have found it difficult to operate within the existing ratio requirements and this is an area we will be looking at very closely when considering proposals for reviewing the national standards this year.'