UK Offence Report

Amendments to the Childcare (Early Years and General Childcare Registers) (Common Provisions) Regulations 2008

regulation 6(7) of The Childcare (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2015

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

7 After regulation 7A, insert— PART3A Premises Certain providers: offence of providing provision other than on approved premises 7B 1 A registered person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with a prescribed requirement in relation to the premises on which early years provision or later years provision is provided is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 registered person
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a registered person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

“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: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

her than on approved premises 7B 1 A registered person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with a prescribed requirement in relation to the premises on which early years provision or later years provision is provided is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine.

What would breach regulation 6(7)?

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 registered person fails to comply with a prescribed requirement in relation to the premises on which early years provision or later years provision is provided.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Childcare (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2015 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
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

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
21 July 2015
In force from
Not determined
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.

Part 1 of these Regulations sets out amendments to a number of regulations made under the Childcare Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”) following changes made to Part 3 of the 2006 Act by sections 76 and 77 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. These changes allow childminders to provide up to half of their provision on non-domestic premises; they also allow childcare providers to provide childcare from multiple premises in a single registration process. Regulations 4 and 5 amend the Childcare (Early Years Register) Regulations 2008 and the Childcare (General Childcare Register) Regulations 2008. In particular, they amend the prescribed requirements for registration so that the premises used by early years and later years providers for providing childcare must have been approved as suitable by the Chief Inspector or a childminder agency (“the relevant person”) before childcare is provided there. Regulations 5 and 8 amend the Childcare (General Childcare Register) Regulations 2008 and the Early Years Foundation Stage (Welfare Requirements) Regulations 2012. In particular, the amendments require registered early years and later years providers to send certain information to the relevant person if they wish to provide childcare on additional premises. Registered voluntary providers may choose whether or not to seek approval of additional premises. Regulation 6 amends the Childcare (Early Years and General Childcare Registers) (Common Provisions) Regulations 2008. In particular, the amendments change the contents of certificates of registration issued by the relevant person. The amendments require the relevant person to decide whether to approve additional premises as suitable for the proposed provision. The amendments also make it an offence to provide provision on premises that have not been approved by the relevant person and they create a right of appeal to the Tribunal if the relevant person refuses to approve additional premises as suitable. Regulation 7 amends the Childcare (Fees) Regulations 2008. In particular, the amendments specify the fee that is payable if a provider seeks the Chief Inspector’s approval of the suitability of additional premises. Regulation 7(7)(d) amends regulation 10(7) of the Childcare (Fees) Regulations 2008 to extend to 31st August 2017 the transitional provision for those childcare providers (other than childminders) who automatically transferred on 1st September 2008 from the childcare register under Part 10A of the Children Act 1989 to one of the registers under Part 3 of the 2006 Act. This means that for such providers the fee applicable to early years provision that is provided for more than 3 hours but fewer than 4 hours per day is £50 (rather than £220, as would otherwise be the case under regulation 10(3) of the Childcare (Fees) Regulations 2008). Part 2 of these Regulations contains transitional provisions that apply to providers who are registered in one of the registers under Part 3 of the 2006 Act immediately before 1st January 2016. A full impact assessment of the effect that these Regulations will have on the costs to business and the voluntary sector is annexed to the Explanatory Memorandum. These are available alongside the Regulations at www.legislation.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

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