Nearly 99,000 children aged three to five were attending pre-school education and daycare centres in January 2001, the provisional results of the 2001 Pre-school and Day Care Census suggest. The final figures are due in the autumn. Almost three-quarters of the children were attending local authority pre-school centres and the rest were in centres which were working in partnership with their local authority.
There were more than 4,300 centres offering pre-school education or daycare. Nearly half of these were nurseries and 29 per cent playgroups. The remainder were out-of-school clubs (10 per cent), play schemes (5 per cent), creches (4 per cent) or family centres (4 per cent).
Most of the settings surveyed offered more than one type of service, and on average each offered three different services, including after-school care, parents' groups, home visiting or transport. Family centres were found to offer the most diverse range of services, with an average of nine different types of services each.