Law on unpaid childcare

[nenevomito]

My dd is currently in full time child care, but my friend has offered to have her one day a week so she can take her to activities with her children - they are all friends.

I'd like to take her up on the offer, but am not sure what the law is with regards to unpaid childcare during the day. I think I read somewhere that family is OK but not friends.

Can anyone help? It would be lovely for dd to spend this time with them.

As long as you are not paying your friend then it is asolutely fine. There used tobe a grey area where reciprocal childcare was classed as payment but after a recent high profile case that is now OK too.

If no money or goods change hands then it's fine :)

In 2009 the Secretary of State wrote a strongly worded letter telling Ofsted to butt out and mind their own business when some petty wanker reported two female police officers who had an arrangement for breaking the law.

<a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20091112210441/www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0183" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Some info here <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.number10.gov.uk/Page20902" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">and here. But my old links are no longer working.

Legislation: The Childcare (Exemptions from Registration) (Amendment) Order 2010

Thanks all, that's really helpful. I just wanted to make sure we were OK before we started as there are some real meddling busy bodies around here!