THE Co-operative likes to trade on its image of being community-friendly, outside the gang of other High Street corporates where profit is the sole motivator.

No nursery should be found by Ofsted, the inspection agency, to be run in the fashion that the Cuddesdon Way facility was. The fact that it was the Co-operative, with its community outlook, aggravates the situation.

Often you can judge an organisation on how it reacts to a failing. Errors occur, and a truer insight into a company can often be gained not by the mistake but how it reacts.

For the Co-op that insight is not positive.

When we first discovered the nursery had been closed by Ofsted, it said: “We have already taken steps to address the issues raised, which were mainly around internal processes and procedures.”

Today we can reveal what the inspector found: staff not recognising dangerous behaviour, being “unresponsive” to children’s needs, not knowing their names, crying toddlers told to stop being silly, a high number of accidents in a short period, broken and damaged equipment left in situ and legal ratios of staff to children not met.

“Mainly” internal processes and procedures infers more a failing of bureaucracy and paperwork.

The reality of what Ofsted found is nothing of the sort in our view and the Co-op’s description is tenuous at best.

It also steadfastedly ignored legitimate enquiries about the suspension of staff.

The Co-op clearly needed to learn lessons about running this nursery. It also needs to learn lessons about accountability, transparency and responsibility if it wishes to still be thought of as that cuddly community-friendly business and not just a reputation-covering corporate entity.