Crèche wasting hours making preliminary survey (5)
I believe the answer is:
recce
'preliminary survey' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'creche wasting hours making' is the wordplay.
'wasting' suggests deleting specific letters.
'hours' becomes 'h'.
'making' indicates an anagram.
'creche' with 'h' taken away is 'crece'.
'crece' anagrammed gives 'RECCE'.
(Other definitions for recce that I've seen before include "Advance exploration" , "Shufti" , "Explore with the aim of gaining useful information" , "Survey to obtain information" , "Reconnaissance" .)