Explore Play Wales
The Welsh Government’s consultation on the National Minimum Standards (NMS) for Regulated Childcare for children up to the age of 12 focuses on the latest proposed changes. The proposals include the structure and layout of the NMS, open access play standards and deployment of staff in day care settings.
For open access playwork settings in particular, there are some important changes, including:
- an updated definition of open access
- a decision to develop standalone open access standards
- developing an approach that allows a provider to register once when working across multiple sites.
This is Play Wales’ draft response to the consultation. We are sharing it to help stakeholders formulate their own response. If you would like to share any feedback to inform our final response, please email us.
The closing date for responding to the consultation is 10 December 2025.