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Paid childcare

Discuss everything related to paid childcare here, including childminders, nannies, nurseries and au pairs.

Original poster

Making the assumption that the current law on unregistered childcare is wrong/bad/evil etc: How do the authorities differentiate between unregistered (not needing registration) childcare & registered?

30 replies

Katymac · 29/09/2009 10:15

Assuming that:
registration is needed for tax credits
the current law is abolished

What criteria is to be used in future to decide whether someone should be registered or whether they can care for children without registration

This is not intended to be an argument about the current system - I want it to address what the system should be for the future

What do people think should happen?

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Original poster
Katymac · 30/09/2009 07:25

Isn't this funny - I thought there would be loads of posts on here.

It must be so much easier to slag off the government than to come up with constructive suggestions on how to improve things

OP posts:
Arfa · 29/09/2009 14:25

The policewomen would only ever be looking after each other's children. They are not trying to expand on this so they are not operating a childminding business, therefore regulation should not be required.

squirrel42 · 29/09/2009 10:45

That odd smiley was supposed to be one-two-one with some :'s in! Sorry!

squirrel42 · 29/09/2009 10:44

Re the care thing Ofsted does have quite a bit of care regulation as well now, since it took over all children's social care registration a few years ago. I can't see the one over-arching organisation splitting back up into lots of different parts - enconomies of scale and all.

My personal view is that the registerable vs non-registerable care rules are pretty much fine, and you could avoid problems like this with a bit of tweaking. The reward covering more than just money thing isn't a big problem, and should still apply if one parent does lots of favours for dozens of friends and has other people's children all day every day in exchange for gifts and evening/weekend babysitting.

However I think it would be useful to have another exemption so that onene reciprocal arrangements don't require registration. There would be very few friends who can take more than one other family's kids on a regular basis like the policewomen, and with one family only it's effectively like an arrangement with relatives. Once you start having several different children at different times, that's when the need to do things like keep records becomes a factor. here are also very few under-the-radar childminders who would only take kids from one family, so there's little chance of the exemption being abused.

StrictlyAvadaKedavra · 29/09/2009 10:18

I don't think the current laws will be/should be abolished in their entireity I think they have drawn the line exactly wherethey could and should.

I do think the system as it is should stand but be made clearer in terms of what reward can mean and also publicised better - although think the last part has been achieved somewhat

I think giving back childcare to a Care regulatory body rather than an Education based one would be a good move too.