This involved three main stages:
- Identifying the supply of childcare and where it is located
- Identifying which areas in Wales are likely to have higher demand for childcare
- Comparing the supply and potential demand
The report seeks to map childcare supply across Wales to potential demand, calculated by the number of children aged under 4 within a reasonable travel distance of registered childcare settings. As a result, an estimate of childcare availability, which is the ratio of supply to demand, has been calculated as the number of hours available to each child based on available childcare in their area.