Who we are
Nursery Advice is an independent UK nursery directory operated by Better Search Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17209315). For UK data protection law, we are the "data controller" for personal information you give us directly (for example when you create an account or send an enquiry). For information sourced from Ofsted, GIAS and other public registers, we act as a re-publisher under those bodies' open licences.
Questions about anything in this notice? Email hello@nurseryadvice.co.uk.
What we collect
We try to collect as little as possible. Specifically:
- Account details — email, password (hashed), display name, and your role (parent or owner).
- Saved activity — the nurseries you favourite, comparisons you build, searches you re-use.
- Enquiry content — your name, contact details, child's age range and any message you write when you contact a nursery, request a visit, or join a waitlist.
- Owner / claim information — your role at the setting, evidence supplied to verify a claim, and edits you make to the listing.
- Technical data — IP address, browser/device, approximate location (from IP), pages visited, referring site. Used for security, debugging and product improvement.
- Support correspondence — anything you send us by email or through a contact form.
We do not ask for, and you should not send, information about your child's health, special educational needs or anything else sensitive. If you choose to share that with a nursery through our enquiry form, we pass it to the nursery and delete it from our records once the enquiry has been delivered.
How we use it
- Run the site and the features you use (search, save, compare, enquire)
- Deliver enquiries, visit requests and waitlist sign-ups to the nursery you chose
- Verify nursery claims and prevent impersonation
- Keep listings accurate via our staging-and-vetting pipeline
- Detect and prevent fraud, scraping, abuse and unsafe content
- Improve the product (which filters get used, where parents drop off, what's broken)
- Send you essential service emails — and, only if you opt in, occasional updates
Lawful basis (UK GDPR)
- Contract — to provide the account features you signed up for.
- Legitimate interests — running and improving the directory, security, and fraud prevention. We've balanced this against your privacy.
- Consent — for non-essential cookies and any marketing emails. You can withdraw consent at any time.
- Legal obligation — where we have to keep records for tax, regulatory or law-enforcement reasons.
Enquiries sent to nurseries
When you send an enquiry, request a visit, or join a waitlist, your message and contact details are passed to the nursery so they can reply to you. From that point on, the nursery is the data controller for what they do with your message. We retain a copy briefly so we can prove delivery and help resolve any disputes — see retention below.
Nurseries who receive enquiries through us must only use your details to respond to you, unless you separately agree to something else (for example, joining their newsletter).
Nursery owners and claims
If you claim a listing, we collect what's needed to verify you have authority to act for the setting (your role, work email, sometimes a one-time code sent to a phone or email tied to the registered provider). Approved claims are kept for the lifetime of the listing; rejected claims are deleted within 90 days unless we need to retain them for fraud prevention.
Edits you make as an owner are logged so we can roll back accidents and demonstrate who changed what.
Ofsted, GIAS and other public data
Most of the listing content — provider name, address, registration status, inspection grade and report extracts — comes from Ofsted's published reports and the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools (GIAS) register. We re-use this material under the Open Government Licence v3.0. If you are a registered provider and believe a piece of public data about your setting is wrong, the authoritative correction has to come via Ofsted; we will mirror the change as soon as it appears in the source.
How long we keep things
- Account data — while your account is open, plus 12 months after closure for fraud prevention, then deleted.
- Enquiries — copy retained for 6 months after delivery, then deleted.
- Claim evidence — kept while you own a verified listing; deleted within 90 days otherwise.
- Server logs — typically 30 days, longer only if relevant to a security incident.
- Listing edit history — retained for the life of the listing for audit and rollback.
Security
We use industry-standard hosting, encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest, hashed passwords, role-based access controls in our database, and an admin vetting queue between our enrichment pipeline and what gets published. No system is perfectly secure, but if something does go wrong and your data is at material risk we'll notify you and the ICO as required.
Children's data
Nursery Advice is for adults choosing childcare. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 18. Please don't send a child's full name, photos of children, or health information through our enquiry forms — keep that for the conversation you have directly with the nursery, on their own systems.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can:
- Ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Correct anything that's wrong
- Ask us to delete your data (within limits — e.g. we may keep minimal records for fraud prevention)
- Restrict or object to certain processing, including direct marketing
- Withdraw consent for anything you'd consented to
- Receive a portable copy of your data
To exercise any of these, email hello@nurseryadvice.co.uk. We'll respond within one month. If you're unhappy with our response, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
International transfers
Our hosting is in the UK or EEA wherever possible. Where a sub-processor (e.g. an email delivery service) is based outside, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, with additional safeguards as appropriate.
Changes to this notice
We update this notice when our practices change. The "last updated" date at the top always reflects the current version. Material changes will be flagged on the homepage or emailed to account holders.
Contact us
For privacy questions, data requests, complaints or anything else, email hello@nurseryadvice.co.uk.
Nursery Advice is operated by Better Search Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17209315).