Proposed deregulation of childminders

From the press release:

A structure based on academies and agencies could mean a single childcare support payment for parents - replacing childcare tax credit, nursery vouchers and employer vouchers - so there would be less administration and leakage in the system.
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(wish we had the quote facility that MumsnetHQ can do)

So there is some mention of replacing childcare vouchers.

Tanith - I agree that it could mean that nannies and childminders are brought closer together, though how would they do it? Could they create legislation that means all nannies have to register? Would parents want outside agencies/organisations coming into their home to tell their employee what to do?

For anyone who needs the links:

CentreForum: Affordable Qualify (pdf) by Elizabeth Truss, May 2012

CentreForum Press Release (html) 21 May 2012

The other thing that occurred to me is whether or not nannies will find themselves being part of the same inspection agencies. They seem very keen at the moment to bring nannies and childminders closer together.
I do hope I'm over thinking this..,

It's an MP / think tank proposal, so nothing confirmed at all, will be interesting to see any DfE proposals.

The report doesn't seem evidence-based in terms of arguments in favour of the proposed organisational arrangements, but the figure that the number of CMs has dropped by half since 1996 is striking.

Thanks for the links.

See that they are arguing that it should no longer be illegal to mind friends' children for money without registering, really like that idea. Like others, not convinced by the agency model, especially if it'd mean nurseries overseeing CMs and parents (rather than taxpayers via Ofsted) footing the bill for the agencies, or additional regulation. IMO less regulation is needed, this sounds like more.

Hi Nick,

That would probably work like the Networks were supposed to. I never had a problem with our Network co-ordinator popping round - she was much more thorough than OFSTED and she was also very supportive. However, our LA has complained that Networks are too expensive to administer, so we'd get a watered down version, I suspect.
The issues with this are that I think there's the potential for discrepancies between areas, and I don't want my grade to rely on anyone else: I work hard and I think I should have something to show for it.

Using the Children's Centres is fraught with problems, too. I haves very good relationship with mine - they're all friends. Others dislike childminders and try to discourage them.

And why aren't they addressing the high charges of nurseries? I thought they were more expensive.

Argh how would stopping us from taking vouchers etc help people access childcare? Also, paying a nursery to train and assess me? My response is unprintable
Furthermore, I don't want more children for less money.

If the changes proposed go ahead, this is what I was told by my DO, would effect me;

1. The goverment are thinking of stopping CM's accepting the £243pp Tax payment (can't think of its name sorry).
2. Only nurseries would be accredited therefore accredited CM's would no longer be able to offer the free funding places.
3. CM's would be graded as a group not individualy which for some cm's would mean gaining a higher grading but for some may mean a lower grading than what they have now.
4. CM's would be graded and trained by Nurseries. This makes them seem supirior than CM's, may be hard to gain an outstanding grade as nursereis may not want to grade above themselves, training may be poor.
5. My rations may go up.
6. I may be asked to pay 10% of my profits to the nurseries training and grading me.

There is alot of information about this topic on the Childminding forum.
www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/forum/

Though local authorities may become the 'agencies', so it may make it like it was before Ofsted came along - local authorities doing training and inspection.
Is there any reason why the local authority couldn't be the 'agency'?

Exactly Tanith! You've said what I was trying (and v probably failing) to say last night. Most of the nurseries near me are really poor - which is why I became a CM rather than putting my son in one and going back to work. Their grades are satisfactory or, at best, good. Also the staff are, on the whole, young teenagers - and they have a high staff turnover.

I'm not surprised that they're keen to become agencies and provide training etc, as they'll be well paid for taking on the extra work, but that doesn't mean they'll be any good at it!

The trouble is, all this talk of childminders being inspected by nursery workers, and nurseries offering training to childminders implies that nurseries are therefore superior in care to childminders. They're not.
I'd be insulted if my local nurseries had to inspect me. I have a higher grade than any of them in all areas and I have put on training for them in the past.
Why are they singling out childminders when the real issue is ratios? Are nurseries not expensive, too?
In Scandinavia, the ratios are much higher than in the UK (I believe it's one adult to around 7 children in a nursery) - one reason why their childcare is cheaper. Mind you, the Scandinavian children are more independent at an earlier age and there are less H&S regulations.

Opps, should be centreforum.org

It's on www.centerforum.org I'm on mobile so can't link directly to the PDF, could someone add that link?

It's on www.centerforum.org I'm on mobile so can't link directly to the PDF, could someone add that link?

Radio4 are reporting this morning that a paper has been published on this topic.

One thing that is in it is that childminder ratio should be changed, from 1 under 1 to 2 under 1 and from 3 under 5 to 5 under 5.

Can anyone locate the document?

Hopefully this link works, where the issues are discussed in more detail.

I think that the fear is that CMers will still be inspected - and more frequently - but it'd be by agencies/development workers/children's centre/nursery staff, so it'd be even more random/unfair than (some people think) it is now. Also, the Government might choose to use a mode of the Danish system, whereby agencies take a lot of the autonomy away from the individual CM - and charge 10% of our fees to do so.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to have a shared grade, have my recruitment done, fees collected and policies determined by anyone else or be inspected by someone random - certainly not by a local nursery worker/agency!

This is taken from the report in nursery world

In the Netherlands, the agencies... then supervises the quality of childcare provided by conducting home visits and meets the childminder at least twice a year. Agencies also help childminders with their business plans as they tend to be self-employed. They produce a care plan, which childminders attached to the agency subscribe to...

Agencies are regulated through annual, unannounced inspections. The regulator also inspects childminders on a random basis (between 5 and 30 per cent of the total annually) to verify that the standards have been met...

The agency takes a percentage of the cost the parent pays for childcare (approx 10 percent in the Netherlands). Thus agencies have an incentive to ensure there are available quality childminders in areas that may be under resourced...

Introduction of an agency model also provides an opportunity to make use of existing Childminding Networks, nursery and local authority provision by their converting to agency status and taking on greater responsibility. I have met a number of nurseries who would be interested in offering training and support to local childminders. Agencies would also reduce the bureaucratic burden on individual childminders. They would market childminder services locally, collect payment from parents and to train childminders in best practice.

Here is something, from Conservative MP Elizabeth Truss.

<strong>Elizabeth Truss MP</strong>:'In the Netherlands there is a system of agencies which train and regulate childminders. They have twice the number of childminders per head than we have in the UK and also their childcare is more affordable. Would the Secretary of State look into what happens in the Netherlands with a view to getting better value for the universal credit money and getting more people into work as childminders??

<strong>The Rt Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP</strong>: ?I take this opportunity to congratulate my honourable friend on the work she has been doing on this. And she is quite right; it is an important area and one which I have asked the Department and also the Department of Education to look at together. 
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Does that say that Government are proposing changes?  I don't think so... I think it just says that Government are looking at how things are done elsewhere to see if what works in other countries could work here.

Dozer, all I can find is Individual Inspection Matters on the NCMA website which links to various documents. I can not locate any actual Government proposal documents. Has anyone actually found any on Education.gov.uk or other government sites?

Thanks nick. I can't find anything on the actual proposals, but will post if I do.

The survey by NCMA, published by NCMA shows that only 2,908 childminders completed the survey. Ofsted's database is currently giving me a figure of 57,392 childminders. I make that a little over 5% of childminders actually responded to the survey. Are those 5% of childminders representative of the whole... hard to know. Their views may represent those of childminders in general, or they may not.

Question 2 that NCMA asked childminders (Source: Individual Inspection Matters Survey 18th May. .DOC format) was about the cost of regulation:
The current process of regulation and inspection is not costly to individual childminders. Only 1% of respondents stated registration fees were the largest annual cost to their childminding business.

The problem has been over the years that childminders have had their registration fees subsidised. There were proposals a few years back to change the fees to being self funding... that is that the cost charged to providers was the cost it actually costs to run the registration and inspection process.

In the Regulatory Impact Assessment from the Ofsted Childcare Register... I think this is dating back to 2006 ish time, the cost of registering a childminder was £750, with the same cost applying for the 3 yearly inspections.

So, I am wondering if this is about Money. Government want to save money and NCMA I would guess don't want their members to have to pay registration costs in the region of £750. Is it about money? If Ofsted are no longer involved in childminder registration and it falls under a different agency, is part of the proposal that such an agency will be self funding... that it will charge childminders the real cost of registration? Anyone know what is actually being proposed?

Please could you post a link to the actual proposals?

And evidence to support the assertion that current regulations have improved quality?

My understanding is that CM numbers dropped significantly in recent years, likely due to regulation.

Thr self-employment thing is a red herring, many CMs just have one or two clients; many nannies work for more than one family,

IMO the only things that should be regulated are numbers and safeguarding, and vouchers should be able to be used whether or not to carer delivers the EYFS.