This paper is part of a series of 12 reports that describe the research on effective pre-school provision funded by the UK Department for Education & Employment (DfES). It reports on interviews conducted with the managers of the EPPE pre-school centres which took place between October 1997 and July 1998 (the main sample) and October 1998 and December 1998 (the EPPE-extension). In total, 140 centre managers in 5 regions (six local authorities) in England were interviewed.