UK Offence Report

1 A registered early years provider who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with the requirements of…

regulation 12(1) of The Early Years Foundation Stage (Welfare Requirements) Regulations 2012

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

1 A registered early years provider who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with the requirements of regulation 7(1), 8(1), 8(2) or 10(2) is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
Fault element
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: the offence itself carries no fault word, but a duty it criminalises by cross-reference uses so far as is reasonably practicable, reasonably practicable; which element that governs was not determined; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

1 A registered early years provider who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with the requirements of regulation 7(1), 8(1), 8(2) or 10(2) is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

What would breach regulation 12(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person fails to comply with the requirements of regulation 7(1), 8(1), 8(2) or 10(2).
  2. Being served with a notice under the Early Years Foundation Stage (Welfare Requirements) Regulations 2012 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (2012-09-01); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
26 March 2012
In force from
1 September 2012
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, made under the Childcare Act 2006 (“the Act”), specify the welfare requirements that early years providers (“providers”) must meet. Together with the “learning and development requirements” specified under section 39(1)(a) of the Act, these form the “Early Years Foundation Stage”. The “Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage”, published by the Secretary of State for Education on 27th March 2012 is given the force of law. Copies of the document can be found on the website of the Department for Education at https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/AllPublications/Page1/DFE-00023-2012 Regulations 3, 7, 8 and 9 specify welfare requirements. These include a prohibition on corporal punishment by providers to children in their care (regulation 7), a list of events the occurrence of which must be notified to the Chief Inspector (regulation 8 and the Schedule) and a requirement that a provider must give the Chief Inspector information about matters leading to disqualification from registration as a childcare provider under section 75 of the Act. Regulations 10 and 11 set out the procedure to be followed by the Chief Inspector where a provider has failed or is failing to comply with the welfare requirements. Regulation 12 makes it an offence if a provider fails to comply with the requirements set out in regulations 7, 8 and 10(2). Regulation 13 contains revocations. An impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations and can be found at http://www.ialibrary.bis.gov.uk/

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”; the provision states liability on summary conviction
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source