Latest report · Ofsted register to 30 June 2026
What you get
The full specification of the NurseryWatch report: the files, every column, every change type and how owners are matched. Everything here is exact; the home page says the same in plain words.
Files
Each release comes as three files by email. The report is a plain CSV with a header row and 14 columns; one row is one change at a company- or charity-run setting between two Ofsted childcare register files.
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
nurserywatch-changes-2026-06-30.csv | The report for this release. 2,675 rows, out of 9,076 changes on the whole register. Sent to subscribers: your first month free for up to 10 local authorities you name, then £49 a month for the full report. |
nurserywatch-sample.csv | Free sample: 50 rows from the report, same columns. 20 new, 14 places changes, 12 left the register, 3 setting renames, 1 owner rename, across 39 local authorities. |
README.txt | This page in plain text, inside every delivery. |
summary.json | Counts for the release: both as-at dates, changes per change type across the whole register, rows in the file, rows with a company number, matched and unverified owners, and the counted-only totals. |
Columns
in file order| Column | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
urn | Ofsted's unique reference number for the setting. Stable across releases. Numeric, or prefixed EY or VC. | 2781951 |
change_type | One of the five change types below. | PLACES_CHANGE |
provider_name | The setting's name as registered with Ofsted in the newer file (the older file for settings that left the register). | Fruity Club: Holy Ghost |
old_value | The value before the change: places for PLACES_CHANGE, the previous name for NAME_CHANGE and OWNER_CHANGE, Active for CLOSED, empty for NEW. | 16 |
new_value | The value after the change, on the same rule: Active for NEW, absent for CLOSED. | 250 |
local_authority | The local authority the setting sits in, as in the Ofsted file. | Wandsworth |
postcode | The setting's postcode as in the Ofsted file. | SW12 … |
delta | new_value minus old_value. Filled for PLACES_CHANGE only. | 234 |
provider_type | Ofsted's provider type for the setting. | Childcare on non-domestic premises |
owner | The registered owner as on the Ofsted register (Ofsted's "Registered person name"). Always a company or charity. | Fruity Club Ltd |
owner_kind | Always organisation: the report lists company- and charity-run settings only. The column is kept so the layout stays stable across releases. | organisation |
company_number | Companies House number of the registered owner where the name matches a live Companies House record. Empty where no record matches. | 8-character number |
matched_name | The company name as held by Companies House for that number. Empty where company_number is empty. | the Companies House spelling of the owner name |
ch_confidence | Empty where company_number is empty. Otherwise verified when the name match is exact and either the company's registered SIC code is childcare (88910, 88990), education (85*), sports or recreation (931*, 932*), or its registered office is in the same postcode area as the setting; otherwise name match, unverified. Close, fuzzy or word-order-swapped matches are always name match, unverified. Check the company number before relying on it. | verified |
Change types
change_type values and whole-register counts, 31 Dec 2025 to 30 Jun 2026A change is anything that differs for the same URN between the older and the newer Ofsted file, plus every URN that appears in only one of them. Counts cover the whole register; the report lists the 2,675 changes at company- and charity-run settings.
NEW3,571The URN is in the newer file and not in the older one. Most are settings that registered in the period. The file carries no registration date, so a URN that first appears in the newer file counts as new whatever its registration date.
CLOSED3,193The URN is in the older file and absent from the newer one. Ofsted drops a setting from the file when it leaves the register and gives no reason, so this may be a closure, a suspension, a re-registration under a new URN or a change of provider type. In this release every row in both files has status Active, so no row is marked closed by status.
PLACES_CHANGE1,997Registered places went up or down. old_value, new_value and delta are filled. A move from 0 may be a setting starting or restarting, or a gap in the older file.
NAME_CHANGE194The setting's name changed by more than spelling. Changes of case, spacing or punctuation, typos of up to two characters, and a legal suffix (Ltd, Limited, LLP, CIC, CIO, SCIO, PLC) added, dropped or swapped are corrections: counted in summary.json (21 in this release) and left out of the rows. The same rule applies to owner names (7).
OWNER_CHANGE93The registered owner's name changed on the same Ofsted registration (same Registered person URN). This is the same legal entity under a new name, a rebrand or a share purchase that kept the company number. It is not a transfer of the setting. Check Companies House previous names before treating it as a sale. A sale to a different entity appears instead as a CLOSED row plus a NEW row at the same address.
One row
URN 2781951 · places 16 → 250urn,change_type,provider_name,old_value,new_value,local_authority,postcode,delta,provider_type,owner,owner_kind,company_number,matched_name,ch_confidence 2781951,PLACES_CHANGE,Fruity Club: Holy Ghost,16,250,Wandsworth,SW12 …,234,Childcare on non-domestic premises,Fruity Club Ltd,organisation,…,…,…
The first line is the file's header. The full postcode and the three Companies House values are elided on this page and present in the file.
Companies House match
1,459 of the 1,536 distinct owner names in this release match a live Companies House record (95%). 2,586 of the 2,675 rows carry a company number; 2,389 of those are verified and 197 are name match, unverified. Company names are cross-referenced with Companies House data under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Neither Ofsted nor Companies House endorses this file.
Who is named
Settings run by childminders and other individuals are counted only. They never appear as rows: in this release 5,593 of the 9,076 changes are at such settings and appear as a total in summary.json.
A company or charity owner whose name may identify a person (for example a title followed by a surname, or a forename and surname with a legal suffix) is counted only as well. In this release that is 788 changes, no rows.
20 spelling or punctuation corrections at organisation-run settings are counted only. 2,675 rows + 788 + 5,593 + 20 = 9,076.