To ask the Minister of Education if the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency will publish the median daily rate paid to formal childcare providers before subsidies.

The NISRA childcare survey was designed to provide a representative overview of childcare usage and costs as experienced by households in Northern Ireland. The focus was on capturing the overall financial impact on families, rather than isolating costs by provider type. For this reason, some of the survey tables produced independently by NISRA as official statistics, such as ‘Average monthly payment for childcare by hours used', combine both formal and informal childcare to reflect the full range of arrangements being used by families.

In relation to the request for a median daily rate, supplementary data has been published by NISRA on the Department of Education website: https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-childcare-survey-results. This includes the median cost paid by parents for formal childcare, broken down by provider type.