Early Years Enforcement

It is the legal responsibility of all Registered Providers to ensure that their early year service complies with statutory requirements at all times. For pre-school services this means compliance with the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016 and school age services must comply with the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Registration of School Age Services) Regulations 2018.

Regulatory compliance is a specific requirement of Article 58G of the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, which states: “It shall be the duty of every person providing an Early Years Service to take all reasonable measures to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of children attending the service”.

If you work in an early years service, either as a registered provider or in any other role, you will find helpful information in this section about how legislative and regulatory requirements are enforced by the Early Years Inspectorate in a clear and transparent way. The section describes and outlines the procedures that are applied when the requirements of the regulations are not met.

If you are a parent whose child attends an early years service, or if you are looking for a service for your child, you can find specific information about enforcement action that the Early Years Inspectorate has taken in relation to individual services. This information is divided into two categories 1) services that have conditions attached to their registration and 2) services that have either been removed from the register or prosecuted for serious breach of regulatory requirements.