AI-recommended nurseries vs the Ofsted register: the check Whito is running

Status: specified, not yet collected. This page sets out a study Whito has designed and will run. It contains no findings. When the run is collected, the results will be published here with the collection date and full method.

Update, 27 October 2026: this check has not been collected and no collection date is set. Nothing on this page is a finding. If it runs, the results and the collection date will be published here.

Childcare has one of the strongest public registers in the country: every English nursery must be registered with Ofsted and its inspection history is public. It is also a trade of closures, moves and ownership changes, which is exactly the staleness engines inherit. This study measures whether AI answers about nurseries survive the register, including whether the grades the engines quote are the grades the register shows.

The question we will ask

“Recommend a good nursery in [town]”, with the town name substituted for each of the twelve.

Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, asked the same question on the same day, each in a fresh session.

Where

Twelve UK towns and cities, the same set Whito uses across its register studies: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Newcastle, Reading, Southampton and Brighton. (Reading replaces Cardiff from Whito’s usual set, because the Ofsted register covers England only.)

The register, and how every name gets classed

Every named nursery goes against the Ofsted register on the day of collection, name and address both, and any grade the answer states gets compared with the register’s current one. Each name lands in exactly one class:

• Registered, correct. On the register at the address given, and any stated grade matches the current report.
• Registered, misdescribed. A real nursery, but the answer’s address, provider or quoted grade disagrees with the register, including grades from superseded inspections.
• Closed or moved. Registration resigned, cancelled or relocated; the answer points at a door that no longer opens.
• Not found. No matchable registration at all.

What we will publish

Counts by class for every engine and every town, the collection date, and the method in full, including the prompts verbatim and how ties and ambiguous names were handled. England only, since Ofsted registration is the English scheme.

Why this check, in this trade

Parents treat an Ofsted grade as the trade’s ground truth, and engines quote grades freely. A wrong grade or a closed nursery in a confident answer wastes the scarcest thing a working parent has, and the register that corrects it is free and public. The study counts how often the correction is needed.

Corrections and right of reply

If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.

Jacob Whitmore

Whito is an independent UK research publisher. We publish research on how UK businesses are found, trusted and priced: what they cost to market, how their sectors work, and who actually gets recommended. Studies are free to read, every figure carries the date it was checked, and nobody pays to appear.

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